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HAMAN THE MAGNIFICENT. Page 06. 



ESTHER AND HER TIMES 



IN A SERIES OF 



LECTURES 




BOOK OF ESTHER. 



By JOHN M. LOWRIE, 

FORT WAYNE, INDIANA. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

No. 821 Chestnut Street. 

O 



"E)S5So 



Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by 

JAMES DUNLAP, Treas., 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of 
Pennsylvania. 



STEREOTYPED BY JESPER HARDING b SON, PHILADELPHIA. 



330 



PREFACE. 



The theme of this volume has been furnished to its 
writer from so high a source, that modesty does not for- 
bid him to regard the things here treated of, as of the 
deepest interest and value. That he should rise to the 
dignity of his subject was not to be expected ; to fall far 
below is not so great a matter, since truth has a value 
apart from the ability of its advocates, and the most valu- 
able teachings are usually plain and simple. Indeed if it 
were possible to select a hundred discourses — the best spe- 
cimens of eloquent, forcible, and instructive preaching in 
the history of the church — and present them, consecu- 
tively, before any people, in a single pulpit, within a 
year or two, the success of the plan would be small, either 
to secure interest, or to do good. No element is more 
important to the interest and profit of any teaching than 
appropriateness of occasion and place. " A word fitly 
spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver."* The 
foolishness of preaching is the chosen instrumentality of 
Divine wisdom for the spread of the gospel ; a living 

* Prov. xxv. 11. 

(3) 



4 PREFACE. 

ministry the church will ever require ; and the successful 
style of preaching in every age will be that which is 
most nearly adapted to the circumstances and demands 
of the times. It is no wonder that hundreds of pastors 
are highly esteemed by their own congregations, not only 
for their kind sympathies and their wholesome counsels, 
but also for able and eloquent public ministrations, who 
yet never acquire an extended reputation. It is no 
wonder that discourses which have held an audience 
spell-bound in their delivery, yet do not seem of any 
special excellence when committed to the printed page. 
Intellectual power in a pastor is but one of the elements 
of his usefulness. He should be a " scribe well instructed 
in the kingdom of righteousness ;" but his wisdom is as 
needful to apply the truth as to expound it. His Lord 
has described his office as that of a steward, giving to 
each of his fellow servants " his portion of meat in due 
season." And no man can be such a steward ; no man 
can enter into the feelings of others so as to reach their 
necessities, without awakening his own affections and 
sympathies to such a degree as to shape his meditations, 
chasten his delivery, and modulate his tones to suit the 
various exigencies of his people. Hence there is an 
impropriety in applying to the usual discourses of the 
pulpit, the rules of rhetorical composition or logical dis- 
cussion, which may justly apply to the occasional efforts 
of elaborate oratory. Many a useful and excellent 
sermon owes its chief attraction to paragraphs of local 
interest ; to allusions understood only by the hearers ; 
or to the greater stress laid upon certain points which a 
logical treatment of the topic would have placed in a 
minor position. It strengthens these thoughts to notice 



PREFACE. O 

that the most famous discourses in all ages have been 
called forth by special occasions ; and that the best re- 
mains of many a public speaker are not those upon which 
he has bestowed the greatest thought and care. 

But though the fitting word to the occasion is so im- 
portant to the interest and profit of public instructions, 
we may not therefore argue that every preacher should 
confine his teachings to his immediate hearers ; that 
printed discourses are unprofitable ; or that a reader may 
not, in some degree, sympathize with the original cir- 
cumstances that are involved in the speaker's words. 
We contend that no book can displace the living teacher 
of the gospel ; but we claim that much pleasure and 
profit may be derived from the publication of discourses 
that have been preached before a congregation, and that 
bear the marks of adaptation to their particular occasions. 
There are even advantages which the reader has, especially 
in a series of discourses, over those that have heard them. 
If he is willing to make allowances for the feebler pas- 
sages, that are necessary to maintain the connection ; for 
the occasional introduction and urgency of thoughts, 
that appear to him little relevant ; for repetitions, that 
may be natural and proper in discourses separated in 
their delivery by weeks and months ; and for the diffuse- 
ness of style, that suits the pulpit better than the volume, 
the reader can better get the impression of the whole ; 
better select his own favourable time for the lessons af- 
forded him ; and better ponder the more forcible 
thoughts that seem to require more than a single hear- 
ing. 

The writer of these pages, as a pastor, is constantly ac- 
customed to lecture upon the Scenes and Characters of 
1* 



6 PREFACE. 

the Bible. He regards this as the Scriptural mode of 
presenting truth; for the Sacred Volume is our first and 
chief model for that interesting style of picture-writing, 
now so generally adopted by our best historians, bio- 
graphers, and even essayists. Even before he entered 
the sacred ministry, his attention was called to the Book 
of Esther by a volume of Lectures upon it by the Bev. 
Dr. Thomas McCrie ; and to this unpretending little 
volume alone — one of surpassing interest — does he feel 
under obligations demanding special acknowledgment, 
for the thoughts and conduct of these discourses. 

Convinced that the Book of Esther is too little known 
even to serious readers of the Bible ; persuaded that 
those whose minds are fairly awakened to it, will ever 
afterwards regard it as one of the most interesting por- 
tions of the word of God ; and hoping that these Lec- 
tures may serve to call the attention of some to this por- 
tion of the inspired pages, to impart interest to many of 
the incidents which a casual reader might deem of little 
importance, and thus to enforce the lessons of inspired 
wisdom after this volume itself has been laid aside ; he 
would lay this publication within the reach of christian 
readers. In the whole matter, he is less desirous, he 
trusts, of public favour, than of the Divine smile upon 
an humble attempt to glorify His Word, His Grace, 
His Providence, and Himself. 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE I. 

THE DIYORCE OF VASHTI. 

PAGE 

The book of Esther — Age — Writer — Authenticity — Canonical au- 
thority — Apocryphal addition— Reasons for rejecting— The king 
Ahasuerus — Solution of such questions — Aim of the book — 
The Jews of the Dispersion — God's dealings with them — His 
ways not as ours — Their continued exile explained — Their 
love still towards Jerusalem — The case of Nehemiah illustra- 
tive — Zechariah, chapter vi. — God's great designs promoted — 
Remarkable preparations for the coming of Christ, and for the 
spread of the gospel — Jewish prejudices shaken — Pentecost, 
and the gift of tongues — Missionaries with unwonted advan- 
tages — The triumphs of the early gospel — God's proridence 
vindicated — Foresees the threatening storm — Ahasuerus, the 
Autocrat — Cares of government — The great feast — The state 
of the king — The greater folly of his royal father — Persian 
propriety — None did compel — Concluding folly — An intoxi- 
cated king — A proud queen — Yashti's refusal — The decree of 
the council — The hasty divorce — Room for Esther — The van- 
ity of earth 13 

LECTURE II. 

MORDECAI RAISED TP. 

Vashti's divorce legal — A foolish law — Only one government in- 
fallible — The true law of marriage, transgressed by the king's 
plan — True idea of woman's rights — The Jewish maiden — 
Marriages with the heathen ; unavoidable — Unsought provi- 
dences may be waited upon — Beauty and discretion — An anx- 
ious year — Cruel arrangements — Lonely desolation — Chance — 
Lottery schemes — Free agency — God eminently free — Esther 
chosen — Mordecai the Jew — Ambiguous date — Prepared for his 
place — Providence never lacks instruments — The true scope of 
history — Great men advance God's purposes — Washington — 
Napoleon — The guilt of France and its providential punish- 

(7) 



8 CONTENTS. 

PAGl 

merit — History humanly fortuitous — A Divine plan — Luther 
gradually led forward — An underworkman — The Patriots of 
America — Various concurring agencies — America discovered 
at the right time — The Declaration of Independence — 1757 
— The old French war, the northwestern States, and Ro- 
manism : God's plans — Mordecai, the king's deliverer — 
Palace plots — No reward — Our actions the seeds of things — 
The books to be read — Esther's elevation — True dignity — Sta- 
tion well adorned 38 

LECTURE III. 

HAM AN, THE MAGNIFICENT. 

A new character — The king's favourite — Evils of despotic rule — ■ 
Truth in courts — An Agagite — His desceut — The Ainalekites — 
Reverence for the Prime Minister — One exception — An upright 
conscience — Faith in God — The conflict of ages — Anger, pride, 
revenge — Lucky days and unlucky — The lot — The Lord's dis- 
posal — The king's agency — A heartless monarch — Subtilty not 
argument — Partial truth — Refutation of Haman's charges — 
The elevation of the people is the djgnity of the prince — A true 
people — The inconsistency of the proffered recompense — The 
decree — Writing and printing — The signature — Posts and the 
Post-office — True origin in Judea — An element of civilisation 
— Tenor of the decree — Will it be executed ? — Views of human 
nature — Evil passions excited — Sympathy aroused — The city 
perplexed — The guilty atease 62 

LECTURE IV. 

THE IRREVERSIBLE DECREE. 

A historical inquiry — Deeds of cruelty — What age, land, or 
creed? — Human depravity — The serpent's and the woman's 
seed — Martyrs — Rome, Pagan and Papal — The massacre of 
St. Bartholomew ; its horrors — The Pope's thanksgiving — The 
medal — The painting in the Vatican — Reign of terror — Morde- 
cai's cry — Trouble to the righteous — Walking by faith — For 
the best — True estimate, nature, and workings of faith — Guide 
in duty — Providence, how to be interpreted as our guide — 
Records encouraging — God's watchful care — Mordecai in sack- 
cloth — Will he submit? — Faith and fear — A common exper- 
ience — Grief natural, human, not in itself wrong — The grief of 
Mordecai not personal, but for his people — Searching thoughts 
— Calmer views — Gayety in the palace — A foolish and vnin in- 
scription — Is death forbidden to enter ? — Better woleome sack- 
cloth — The same spirit common yet, and still as vain — Unwel- 
come thoughts; unwelcome things will come — The King of 
kings, our Ruler — Jlis welcome to sackcloth and the sorrowful 



CONTENTS. 9 

PAGE 

— A more glorious palace — Sackcloth may not enter — Prepar- 
ations for that home — Marah — The healing — True peace — Es- 
ther sympathizing with Mordecai — His plea — The law of ap- 
proach — Her fears — The king's apparent estrangement — Piety 
and conflict — Duty safe 81 

LECTURE V. 

DIVINE DESIGNS AND HUMAN DUTY. 

Trouble in the palace — The perplexity of the queen — Inspired 
historians and uninspired actors — Human motives — Lessons of 
wisdom — The golden sceptre — Rising fears — The real difficult- 
ies of Esther's position — These not to be undervalued — Count- 
ing the cost — The greater difficulties of declining duty — The 
forfeited protection of Providence — Israel certainly safe — Im- 
pulse and principle — Divine promises for Zion and the happy 
lot of her sons — Come within her gates — The consistent duty of 
man — Vain cavils — Divine efficiency and human agency — Our 
service not lessened, rather encoura.ged — The doctrine of Elec- 
tion — True nature— Influence — Cod's purposes and providence 
harmonious — Means and ends — Conversion and salvation — 
Time and place — Faith ; its workings, supports, and results — 
The same now — Providence ; minute, particular, and striking — 
One duty in our lot — Missionary efforts — Opportunities for do- 
ing good ; for getting good — Precious promises — Watching 
providences — Can we defeat the Divine designs ? — Mordecai's 
reply — Triumphs of Divine government — Such a time as this — 
Golden opportunities — The sinner exhorted to immediate duty. 104 

LECTURE VI. 

esthek's noble resolve. 

Mordecai's argument not lost — The settled purpose — Faith and 
its conflicts — The minor responsibility — Prudence and piety — - 
The narrative true to nature —The blessing of God first sought 
— Penance and penitence — Fasting—Nature— Objects — A pious 
band in a pagan palace- — Character and company— Prayers of 
her people — A well adorned woman — The beautiful queen — 
True courage — An unbidden approach — Frowning guards — A 
moment of expectancy — The crisis — The sceptre held forth — 
Israel is safe — The errand still unaccomplished — The invita- 
tion to a banquet— Delay — Agitation — Fitting opportunity— 
In Haman's presence — God, the great Deliverer — Restraining 
providence— Hainan's further plots — Learn our duty in per- 
plexing responsibility — Severe trials ; three days — Trial, not 
desertion — Ventures of faith — Alternatives — The sinful soul 
pondering his approach to God — The lepers of Samaria — The 
worst fears — If I perish, I perish — More hopeful position than 
Esther— Flee to Jesus — A precious hymn 126 



10 CONTENTS. 

LECTURE VII. 

THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 

PAQ1 

Human life — A new honour for Haman — The joy of the wicked 
— Long continued wickedness — Its aggravated iniquity — The 
troubled sea — Another step enters — The meeting of Human 
and Mordecai — Principle and policy — The unhappy heart — 
Confidential confessions — All avails nothing — Conscience — 
True honour — True peace — Standing on slippery places — Near 
a fall — Restrained passion — Bitter mortification — Honours un- 
worthily borne — Speedier revenge — The gallows erected — The 
king's sleepless couch — Particular providence — A sleepless 
king — Perhaps — Diary of events— Marvellous traditions — The 
necessary passage read — Ahasuerus has no feeling against the 
Jews — Righteous deeds overlooked — The books to be opened 
— Scriptural teachings — Israel's first deliverer — Paul before 
Agrippa — The world's maxims and the Bible's lessons — Man's 
true excellency — Wise aspirations — True pleasures — The crisis 
of life — The king's inquiry and the robes of honour 149 

LECTURE VIII. 

THE EXALTATION OF MORDECAI. 

A day of business — Haman's early visit — Motives — Mordecai's 
narrow escape — Hainan before the king — The inquiry — Self — 
Ambition — The royal robes — Ideas of earthly grandeur — Dis- 
appointment — Mortification — The triumph of the Jew — The 
conspicuous gallows — The wretched heart — The troubled sea — 
The meekness of Mordecai — True worth and modesty — Wash- 
ington and Burr — Waiting faith — Haman's head covered — The 
conscience — Counsellors not comforters — Fruits of sin — For- 
getfulness impossible — Judas — The seed of the Jews — Long 
experience — The keeper of Israel — The Christian church — The 
scattered Jews — The veil removed — Life from the dead — Un- 
failing triumph — Fatal infatuation — Slippery places — God in 
the midst of Zion — Many afflictions — Persecutions; without; 
within — The oldest kingdom ; most influential — Error short- 
lived — The church immovable — Opposition ; folly of it; what 
it is — Every man a friend or enemy of Christ — The evil con- 
flict of unbelief — Sudden destruction — The privilege of owning 
and loving him 170 

LECTURE IX. 

THE FALL OF HAMAN. 

A book of providence — Hod all around, in great and small — 
Charnock's beautiful thought — Design ; proving him — Hainan 
had little time to consult— The queen's banquet — Tho feelings 



CONTENTS. 11 



of each — Order of the feast — Haman's position — The responsi- 
bility of Esther — Her great request — The king's expectancy — 
Birth-day favour — Liberality — A great state occasion — Relief 
— " Half the kingdom " — A devout aspiration — No common 
matter — The king's mystery — A dark plot — Deep emotion — 
Reason for Haman's presence — The fears of the favourite — 
Guilty fears — An angry king — One glance explains all — Con- 
fidence abused — Vain repentance — The king more exasperated 
— Courtier friendship — The face covered — The gallows men- 
tioned — Haman's summary execution — How to read the les- 
sons of Providence — Indications and trials — Providence and 
the word — Tendencies — Providence and revealed religion — 
The Bible alone claims, vindicates, and explains a providence 
— Intricacy of design proves a design more clearly — This book 
only a page — Hamans and Mordecais still live — Retribution — 
Delay — Punishment lame — " Murder will out" — His own fruit 
— The gospel — Sympathy with Esther and the church — Must be 
practical now — Value of our own age- We must, in this age, 
decide for eternity — Pleas made too late 192 

LECTURE X. 

THE DECREE REVERSED. 

Confiscation — " Corruption of blood" — Haman's wealth — Esther's 
kindred with Mordecai — His advancement — A tried man — A 
day's wonders — The decree — Enraged enemies — Esther applies 
again — New fears — New pleadings — A new example — Inter- 
cessory prayer — Love to the brethren — A test of love to God — 
Christian hopes — Examined — Growing brighter — Duty not re- 
laxed — What if Esther had been unfeeling ?— Christian solici- 
tude for others — Evil upon my people — Her faith again re- 
warded — Infallibility — The great apostasy — New Romish dog- 
ma — Persian expedient— The realm at war with itself — Wisdom 
versus consistency — Amalek and Israel — Time to send the new 
decree — Haste — Edict of Nantes — Dromedaries — Jewish glad- 
ness — Proselytes — A revival of religion— Missionary efforts — 
The great Divine plan — The Jewish dispensation intermediate 
to two others — Judea in the midst — Jewish dispersion — Pre- 
parations for Christ — Converted heathen — Condemning many 
who hear the gospel 212 

LECTURE XI. 

THE DAY OF CONFLICT. 

An eventful day — Two edicts — Civil war — Legalized violence — 
Temperance legislation — Violent men on both sides — Majesty 
of law — Religion a cloak — Anxiety — Jewish advantages — In- 
fluence of the government — Association — Evil easily wrought 



12 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

— Jews moderate ; only defensive— Religious bigotry — Five 
classes of foes — Political — Spiritual — Satan's vestal fire — Pa- 
gan priesthood — Former foes — Ainalekites — Lucky day — Great 
slaughter — Shushan aud the palace — The chief point of attack 
— Hainan's ten sons ; killed on tho spot — Mordecai and Esther 
their chief aim — No false estimate — Palace well known — Secret 
abettors— The king volunteers further aid— Was Esther revenge- 
ful ? — The second day of slaughter — Capital punishment not by 
hanging — Self-defence still — Responsibility upon the assailants: 
less than the law allowed — No spoil — " Not peace but a sword" 
— Is the gospel responsible? — Christians the victims — The 
madness of sinful men — A greater wonder among ourselves — 
The day of conflict an emblem — Battle going on now — Victory 
shall be with the church — Vain excuses — True wisdom — Over- 
tures of mercy — Accept in time 233 

LECTURE XII. 

THE FEAST PURIM. 

The hereditary war — Its issue — Israel's true strength — Jewish 
Thanksgiving day — Gifts to the poor — The feast Purim ; still 
observed — Its curious ceremonies — Authority of the appoint- 
ment — Important principle — Holidays — New moons and Sab- 
baths — Paul — The weekly Sabbath not a Jewish ordinance in 
the Decalogue — The tenor of Scripture — Christian usage — 
If Paul argued against the Sabbath, why with so little ef- 
fect ? — No New Testament authority for appointing solemn 
days — Historical evidences — Methods of transmitting : Tradi- 
tion — Written books — Monuments — Bunker Hill — Another 
method — The fourth of July and the Declaration of Independ- 
ence — Evidence is stronger, the longer time elapses, and the 
wider spread — Impossible to counterfeit — Permanent proof — 
So Purim and the book of Esther — Irrefrngable evidence — A 
river in the ocean — Effects on Europe — Led to the discovery of 
America — A more remarkable river in time j distinct in course; 
vast in volume ; and of immense influence ; never lost among 
others — A branch stream bearing blessings to the race — This 
historical argument applicable to these institutions in the 
church — The Passover — Purim — The Lord's supper — Chain of 
historical proof most complete — Mordecai's prosperity — Curios- 
ity craves more — Concluding reflections— Value of the Old Tes- 
tament — Finger of God in providence — Parts disjointed ; yet 
a harmonious whole — Events around us — Vanity of the world 
Unfading honours — Tho happy friends of God 252 



ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 



LECTURE I. 

THE DIVORCE OF VASHTI. 



The Book of Esther is one of unknown author- 
ship among the tracts composing the sacred volume. 
Even the age, to which we are to refer the events 
here recorded, cannot be unquestionably determined. 
We may believe that it was written by the man who 
here bears the name of Mordecai ; and even if we 
are mistaken in this conjecture, it is a matter of 
little importance. For the argument to sustain the 
authenticity of any portion of the sacred volume, 
may be independent of the writer's name, except 
when that name is expressly given ; and there are 
several books in the Bible whose authors' names are 
not given in the books themselves. It is sufficient 
to name Judges, Kings, Chronicles, and the Epistle 
to the Hebrews. 

The position of this book in the sacred canon 
and its inspired authority have sometimes been 
questioned, but we think without good reason. Its 
2 (13) 



14 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

name is omitted in some of the catalogues, made by 
the early fathers, of the sacred books ; and it is a 
very common and certainly a very striking objection 
to a book claiming inspired authority, that in the 
genuine and Hebrew chapters of the Book of Esther, 
the name of God is not mentioned from one end to 
the other. But these objections, merely negative 
in themselves, are of small weight against the more 
numerous and sterling proofs, which establish its 
right to a place in the sacred volume. The Book 
of Esther is contained in the Hebrew Bibles ; it has 
ever been received by the Jews ; and as it was 
beyond question contained in their canon when our 
Lord Jesus Christ was upon earth ; and as, though 
he charged them with corrupt doctrines, he never 
charged them with corrupting the Scriptures them- 
selves, we may justly argue that he set the seal of 
his approval upon the Scriptures as they possessed 
them. This he did without qualification or ex- 
ception. (See John v. 39.) Besides, the later 
Jews regard the Book of Esther as ranking in ven- 
eration next to the Pentateuch ; they yet observe 
with peculiar interest the feast of Purim, of which 
mention is made in this book alone, and which was 
established to commemorate the deliverance that 
this book records ; and this feast affords strong con- 
firmatory proof of the history here given. To all 
which we may add, that though a few of the earlier 
catalogues omit the name of this book, it was gen- 
erally received ; it is mentioned in the catalogues of 



THE DIVORCE OE VASHTI. 15 

Jerome, Augustine, the Third Council of Carthage 
Canon XL VII, and the Council of Laodicea Canon 
LX : and the striking and oft repeated remark of 
the pious Matthew Henry is well worthy of being 
remembered, " If the name of God is not in it, his 
finger is." 

There are nearly seven chapters added to this 
book in the Latin Vulgate and in the English Douay 
version as used by the Church of Rome ; but, for 
good and valid reasons, they are esteemed apocryphal, 
and of no authority whatever. In his edition of 
the Vulgate, Jerome expressly notes where these 
begin ; and declares truly that they are not found 
in the Hebrew at all. This is acknowledged in the 
margin of the Douay ; while it is there added, with- 
out the slightest foundation, " that the Seventy- 
two Interpreters translated them out of the Hebrew, 
or added them by inspiration of the Holy Ghost." 
The doubtfulness of tone used in the very asser- 
tion furnishes its sufficient answer, and proves it to 
be a mere conjecture. In the absence of all proof 
of the authenticity of these chapters, we may easily 
sum up these valid reasons for their rejection. They 
are not found in the Hebrew ; the Jews have never 
received them ; they not only differ in style and 
sentiment from the earlier chapters, but they are 
greatly inferior ; the very first spurious verse men- 
tions the name of God, and these chapters often 
repeat it — in striking contrast with the chapters in 
the Hebrew, where, as already noticed, this name 



16 ESTHER AND IIEli TIMES. 

never occurs ; and these additional chapters abound 
in errors, and even in statements which contradict 
the genuine portion of the book. These apocryphal 
chapters make Mordecai a great man before he de- 
tected the conspiracy against the king : and they 
place this conspiracy before the repudiation of one 
queen, and the marriage of the other ; both which 
matters are contradictory to the genuine book of 
Esther. Moreover Haman is here called a Mace- 
donian, though previously an Agagite. These dif- 
ficulties sufficiently warrant the rejection of chapters, 
which have no plausible claims to prefer for their 
inspired authority. 

The time when these events occurred can as little 
be accurately determined. We judge it is evidently 
not before the return of the Jewish people from the 
Babylonish captivity. The royal city, according 
to this narrative, is Shushan. This determines that 
the monarch was not a Median, but a Persian ; and 
refers the history to a period subsequent to Darius 
the Mede. Happily the instructive character of 
the book is not affected by the discordant answers 
to the inquiry, Who was this Ahasuerus ? Darius 
Hystaspis, Xerxes, Artaxerxes Longimanus, and 
Ochus have been variously conjectured. 

We suppose we are not far from the proper 
period of history, and as likely correct as otherwise 
in the man, if we adopt Artaxerxes Longimanus, 
the son of Xerxes, as the Ahasuerus of this book. 
It is an interesting coincidence, and we judge one 



THE DIVORCE OF VASHTI. 17 

corroborative of our correctness in this, that to re- 
gard this as the period will connect the elevation 
of Esther, not only with this recorded deliverance 
of her people, but with the favour shown by a Persian 
king to Ezra and Nehemiah, that they might re- 
build Jerusalem. Nothing is more natural than to 
see this king protect and strengthen the Jews, 
sending them back to their own land, and assisting 
to rebuild their ancient temple, if in the Providence 
of their God, he had married a Jewish maiden. 

- That there should be no certainty in reference to 
persons and dates, as connected with this book, is 
matter of small surprise to a reflecting mind. It 
is very little that the most learned men know con- 
cerning ages so remote in the history of the world ; 
the Bible itself is our most reliable source of infor- 
mation ; and this sacred volume was not designed 
to furnish us with the annals of the pagan nations. 
Although the book of Esther is among the last of 
the historical writings of the Old Testament, it is 
well for us to remember that the earliest writings 
of profane history date back only thus far. Hero- 
dotus, though usually called the Father of History, 
began to write about the same time that the books 
of Ezra and Nehemiah were composed : and these, 
at the latest, are not more than contemporaneous 
with the book of Esther. The writings of Moses , 
are the plainest and most consistent of ancient 
history ; and they are almost alone in referring to 
these periods of remote antiquity. In the inspired 
2 * 



18 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

volume, God lias given to the world the genealogy 
of the race as it is nowhere else to be found ; and 
though the darkness of human history often serves 
as a hiding place for the sceptic and the scoffer, yet 
the diversities of those that impugn the sacred nar- 
ratives, their endless subterfuges, and their contra- 
dictions of each other, from one age to another, are 
important proofs of error ; and in these things, they 
stand in remarkable contrast with the dignity and 
simplicity and harmony of the inspired writers. 
And we may notice also, that when the line of 
sacred historians stops, though from this period 
profane records begin, there is, at these remote ages, 
much confusion in human history ; the dates are 
often unsettled, and the important characters are 
often poorly described. 

Scarcely any book in the Bible has a more defi- 
nite aim or a plainer lesson in its history than the 
book of Esther. Its simple object is to exhibit the 
workings of God's providence at a remarkable crisis, 
for the deliverance of his people. This is effected 
in the use of natural means, and by the instrumen- 
tality of both good and bad men ; and yet in such 
a way, that the finger of God is evidently seen, even 
in those minute and separated particulars which, 
when they occur, seem of trifling significance and 
without connection. 

It would seem proper for us, in this opening 
Lecture, to consider the condition of the Jews in 
the dispersion, for whom this deliverance was wrought; 



THE DIVORCE OF VASHTI. 19 

and the reasons for the Divine forbearance towards 
that portion of the Jews who still remained in the 
lands of their dispersion. After this, we will notice 
the first step preparatory to the great deliverance : 
the divorce of Vashti as the queen of Persia. 

The destruction of the Jewish State, and the cap- 
tivity of that people in the Babylonish Empire, was 
the just judgment of their covenant God upon them, 
for long continued national sins. This captivity 
lasted through seventy years ; and the return was 
regarded as the dawning of the Divine favour upon 
the chastened people. But it is an inquiry of some 
interest, How would God deal with that portion of 
the nation, that refused or neglected to return from 
Babylon ? We might hastily judge that those, who 
had too little love for the Holy Land, and too little 
zeal for the rebuilding of the temple, to induce them 
to leave the lands of paganism, had forfeited the 
favour of Jehovah ; and that he would work no 
wonders on their behalf. But upon a 'closer view, 
we need have no surprise that God's providence 
still specially regards the scattered Jews ; and that 
this book records his mercy to those that were still 
in exile. The people were urged to go up, by their 
inspired prophets ; it was highly important that the 
city and the temple should be rebuilt. It may have 
been gross failure in duty in many a Jew that he 
chose still to abide in the land of the captivity ; and 
yet is it no marvel of God's providence, that he 



20 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

watched over those that remained, and blessed them 
still in their exile. 

We may consider in reference to this matter : 
1st. That God graciously condescends to meet 
man upon the low grounds where he stands, and to 
grant his favours even though we are undeserving 
of them. We must ever acknowledge, " He hath 
not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us 
according to our iniquities. ? ' The differences be- 
tween the people of God on earth are not such as to 
allow any to boast of duty performed, in a manner 
so exemplary as to merit the Divine favour. There 
are infirmities in all ; and the grace of God is con- 
tinually manifested towards the undeserving. No 
man indeed can be right who justifies his sin or ne- 
glect of duty, on the plea that God is merciful ; and 
that is a plain dictate of inspiration, " If I regard 
iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." 
God sees and frowns upon sin in any man ; he with- 
holds the smile of his regard from his backsliding 
children ; he sends his word to convince them of 
their folly, and his judgments to chastise them for 
it ; and perhaps, according to the records of this 
history, he awakened the attention of the Jews in 
Persia by these events of terror and dismay, which 
yet issued in a deliverance so marked and glorious. 
Had they not been a sinning people, they might not 
have been exposed to the arts of wicked Hainan, 
if they had not been God's covenant people, they 
would not have been delivered from his power. 



THE DIVORCE OF VASHTI. 21 

The Lord does not smile upon sin ; but when his 
people are negligent of duty, he chastises them. 
Still he does not forsake them. If even we decide 
that the Jews remaining in the exile were unmind- 
ful of their duty, we can easily reconcile it with 
Jehovah's holiness and faithfulness, that he watched 
over them in mercy. 

We may consider, 

2nd. That there were some obvious reasons to 
extenuate, and even to justify the apparent disobe- 
dience of many of those, who yet did not return to 
the Holy Land at the bidding of the prophets. We 
might suppose that if the piety of the entire people 
had been ardent and zealous ; if they had all 
grieved at the waters of Babylon, like the prophet 
who hanged his " harp upon the willows," and pre- 
ferred Jerusalem above his chief joy, Ps. cxxxvii. 2; 
if they had taken " pleasure in the stones" and 
favoured "the dust" of Zion, Ps. cii. 14; they 
would have received with gladness the long desired 
permission to return from the land of the stranger. 
But let us not forget the real difficulties of the case. 
At the bidding of their own prophets, the Jews in 
the captivity had bought lands and built houses in 
these foreign countries ; they had been industrious 
and submissive subjects ; they had identified their 
own interests with the prosperity of the government, 
Jer. xxix. 4 — 7 ; some of their own most eminent 
men had been high in office and enjoyed the favour 
of their monarchs, Neh. i. 11 ; and as the natural 



22 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

result of all these things, strong attachments had 
been formed by property, and by friendship, and in 
many cases, doubtless, by marked usefulness to the 
gentile population around them. That they had 
seldom been persecuted, and that such men as 
Daniel and Nehemiah had enjoyed influence and 
distinction, would tend greatly to strengthen their 
ties of attachment to a foreign soil. Let us not fail 
also to remember the length of the exile. After 
their stay in Babylon and its provinces had been 
prolonged to seventy years, it is obvious that very 
few of the people could have any remembrance at 
all of Judea, or any personal attachments urging 
their return there. It was still indeed the land of 
their fathers ; that soil was included in the covenant 
made with Abraham ; there the Messiah was to 
appear, and all their fond religious associations 
gathered around the Holy Land. Not only their 
sacred books told them of God's promises ; not only 
their prophets urged their return, when the set time 
had come ; but their aged men recounted in their 
ears their early recollections of that splendid temple, 
which had been, in its day, the only spot specially 
consecrated to Jehovah's worship in the world which 
he had made. But the vast majority of the peo- 
ple — we may well say the entire body of the active 
population — were natives of Babylon ; the original 
captives were chiefly dead and laid in foreign graves ; 
and to remove this population back to Judea was 
no easy task. Take any people, and place them 



THE DIVORCE OF VASHTI. 23 

and their children for seventy years in another land, 
constantly forming their attachments there, and 
their entire removal will prove impracticable. The 
cases are not fully analogous ; but every man can 
realize how impossible it would be, to send back to 
Europe, the people and their descendants, who have 
settled in America and remained on the western 
continent for the space of seventy years. 

Besides the difficulties thus suggested against the 
return of the entire people, or even the great mass 
of them, from Babylon to Judea, other difficulties 
also can easily be understood. Many may have de- 
sired to return who were not free to carry out their 
own wishes. We cannot reasonably suppose that 
every Jew was truly pious ; and the ungodly portion 
of the people would care as little to leave their com- 
fortable abodes and return to Judea, as the ungodly 
portion of our population cares to part with their 
property for the spread and support of Christian 
missions. Through the influence of these, many 
pious persons of a better disposition, may have re- 
mained in the dispersion. Many a pious wife or 
child may have been kept away from Judea by a 
careless husband or father : and many a Jewish 
servant of a heathen master may have been unable 
to leave his place of servitude. 

We have at least one example of the detention in 
the land of the captivity against his desire, of one 
who was both a pious man and a prophet. Nehe- 
miah was cup-bearer to the king ; and while his heart 



24 ESTHER AND IIER TIMES. 

was with his distant brethren, his services were de- 
manded in the palace. The king held him in high 
estimation, and when he saw his sad countenance, 
and knew the cause, he allowed him to go to the aid 
of his brethren. But even then he set a time for 
his absence, and exacted of him a pledge of return. 
His case seems to prove that many Jews remained 
in the land of their exile, who would gladly have 
gone to Jerusalem. 

But this matter is farther explained in an inter- 
esting record found in the prophetical writings of 
Zechariah. During the building of the second tem- 
ple, the people who returned to Jerusalem were poor ; 
and having all the disadvantages of a long emigra- 
tion, and building up anew the desolated city, they 
found their resources inadequate to restore that 
costly temple. In these circumstances, the superior 
wealth of their brethren, who remained in the dis- 
persion, was of essential advantage for the progress 
of a work that was of common interest. And these 
brethren were not unmindful of their share in Jeru- 
salem's temple. Perhaps they did not even wait for 
solicitations to contribute. So, according to the re- 
cord in Zechariah, a deputation was at one time sent 
to Jerusalem, consisting of Ileldai, Tobijah, and Je- 
daiah, who brought gold and silver for the building 
of the temple. At this time the question was defi- 
nitely settled by Divine authority, that the Jews, 
who did not come to Jerusalem, should yet have part 
in the temple which they had thus assisted to erect. 



THE DIVORCE OF VASHTI. 25 

The prophet, who records the transaction, was com- 
manded to take a portion of their gold and silver, 
and make crowns,— a single crown of several cir- 
clets, — to place this symbolically upon the head of 
the High Priest ; and then to lay it up in the tem- 
ple for a memorial that these deputies and their 
brethren who sent them with their gift, had a part 
in the building and in the blessings of the Lord's 
house. Thus the Lord declared that the Jews afar off, 
as well as the Jews near, should build in the temple ; 
giving proof that many accepted people were yet in 
the captivity ; giving full recognition of their inter- 
est in the covenant of Abraham; and giving a 
prophetic pledge of the gathering of more distant 
ones — even the scattered gentiles — unto the greater 
temple of which this was but a type, and whose 
Builder should be the Branch of the Lord, the 
great Messiah himself! See Zech. vi. 9 — 15. 

These thoughts will assist us to form a just opin- 
ion of the condition of the Jews who yet remained 
in the lands of exile. Some were ungodly doubt- 
less, and careless of their high birthright as the sons 
of Israel; some, had their piety been deeper, would 
have returned to the land of promise : and many, 
far from the beloved temple and the dwelling place 
of the covenant, maintained a holy and consistent 
life ; loved the ordinances of God ; worshipped, like 
Daniel, with their faces towards the holy city ; and 
by faith, in remembrance of the morning and even- 
ing altar in distant Judea, hoped for the Divine ac- 



26 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

ceptance. Over such a people God's holy provi- 
dence watched. 

But 3d, it is worthy of our notice especially that 
God had designs to serve of a most important na- 
ture, by the detention of so large a portion of the 
Jewish people in the realm of Persia, and by their 
still wider dispersion in all the earth. His provi- 
dential designs do not form indeed the just rule of 
man's duty ; the Jews may have been wrong in not 
returning, though God might overrule even their sin 
for good. We are to judge of man's sinfulness by 
principles, not by Providence ; by his departure from 
commanded duty, not by the results which God may 
work. We may see in this interesting portion of 
the history of the church, that God overruled for 
good, not only the Babylonish captivity itself, which 
was a punishment upon the Jews for national sins ; 
but also the fact that so many, perhaps often wrong- 
fully, remained in the dispersion. God's great design 
in human history was, first, to send his Son as a 
Mediator and Redeemer : and next, through him to 
preach the gospel to every creature. The first gen- 
erations of men " did not like to retain God in their 
knowledge," Rom. i. 21, 28 ; and he gave the 
earth up to blindness of mind and ignorance of sal- 
vation. But to save the principles of true religion 
from perishing, he called Abraham, and in his family 
established the Jewish church, and built around it 
walls of exclusive and separated interests, conserva- 
tive of the great principles of piety, until the rest 



THE DIVORCE OF VASHTI. 27 

of the world had tried man's own awful experiment, 
and found how little man's wisdom can know of God 
without a Revealer. 1 Cor. i. 21. But as the ful- 
ness of time drew on, and the long promised Mes- 
siah was about to come, it was needful that the way 
should be prepared, both in the world and in this 
exclusive church. The prejudices of the Jews were 
to be removed ; their national pride was to be hum- 
bled; the cherished services of their peculiar eco- 
nomy were to be made oppressive and burdensome, 
on the one hand ; while some knowledge of the true 
religion was to be extended to the Gentiles ; their 
expectations were to be awakened for the coming of 
a great Prince ; their languages were to be acquired, 
and a footing obtained in their different kingdoms, 
on the other hand ; and all this as preparatory to 
teaching all nations, and setting up the universal 
kingdom of Christ. How comprehensive the Divine 
plan ! How simple the means to secure these great 
purposes ! To humble Jewish pride and to destroy 
the influence of the Levitical system, their magnifi- 
cent temple was burned to ashes ; its peculiar con- 
tents were lost beyond the possibility of recovery ; 
the ark of the covenant, with its precious accom- 
paniments, the two tables of stone, the Shekinah, 
the rod of Aaron, and the pot of incorruptible 
manna, perished ; even their sacred language was so 
lost that after their return, when Ezra read the law 
of the Lord at Jerusalem in the original Hebrew, 
he was obliged to "give the sense and cause the 



28 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

people to understand the meaning." Nehem. viii. 
8. To subdue their prejudices, and indeed to render 
it impossible to keep the ceremonial law, the people 
were exiled from Judea. For more than seventy 
years, they had neither temple nor altar ; and even 
after the rebuilding of the temple, it was quite im- 
practicable for the scattered Jews to assemble three 
times a year at Jerusalem as their law required. 
To keep the law was impossible ; and, perhaps to 
their surprise, their covenant God continued his 
mercies when the law was not kept. Thus they 
were gradually led to see the difficulties of their law, 
and prepared for a system which would abrogate it. 
So one Jew declares that it was a burden "that nei- 
ther we nor our fathers were able to bear;" Acts xv. 
10 ; and another that it had " decayed and waxed 
old and was ready to vanish away." Heb. viii. 13. 
But it is of very great interest for us to notice the 
design of God's providence for preaching the gospel 
in all the world, and for establishing Christ's uni- 
versal kingdom, by means of the Jewish dispersion. 
The scattered Jews were God's prepared mission- 
aries ; as possibly it may yet be found that the dis- 
persed seed even now shall again be made in all lands 
the chief chosen heralds of the latter day glory, 
when the " veil shall be removed" from their faces; 
2 Cor. iii. 16; and their receiving shall be "like 
life from the dead" to the gentile world. Rom. xi. 
12, 15. We are told that upon the day of Pente- 
cost, the Spirit poured out upon the apostles, im 



THE DIVORCE OF VASHTI. 29 

parted miraculously the ability to speak in foreign 
languages ; but that miracle did not need frequent 
repetition for the wide spread of the gospel. God's 
providence, by natural means, not less remarkable 
than a miracle, had, during the five hundred years 
that preceded Christ's coming, provided for the 
wide spread of the gospel. In this interval between 
the Babylonish captivity and the death of Christ, 
the foreign Jews had become more and more widely 
scattered ; and yet retaining the knowledge and the 
worship of the true God, had their residences in 
every land and spoke every language. Jerusalem 
and its temple was the ecclesiastical metropolis of 
these widely scattered Jews ; their chief priests and 
rulers dwelt in Judea ; and they ever kept them- 
selves distinct from the nations around. Thus we 
find that, on the day of Pentecost, there were dwell- 
ing at Jerusalem, ik Jews, devout men out of every 
nation under heaven." Acts ii. 5. These men 
were well qualified to judge of the genuineness of 
the miracle of speaking with tongues ; and among 
the thousands then converted to God were many 
fully qualified, without such a miracle, to spread 
the gospel abroad. Already they spoke, as their 
vernacular, the languages of all the world. These 
men became missionaries, not by going among 
strangers and picking up a meagre acquaintance 
with the language and modes of thought of a strange 
people ; but by going home to the neighbourhoods 
where they were born, where they were well known 
3 * 



30 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

to the people, and where their personal influence 
was already established ; and with the new and 
strange tidings upon their lips of Christ's death and 
the Spirit's mission ; with a new mind in them ; and 
a new love for souls urging them on, they preached 
the gospel. We have no detailed account of their 
preaching ; but we know that the triumphs of the 
gospel were marvellous in that age, and that soon 
Christianity overthrew the paganism of the Eoman 
empire. A just view of the revolutions of Chris- 
tianity is a wide view. The providence of God had 
been preparing for these triumphs for centuries. 
The fulness of time had come when the Son of 
God appeared. Gal. iv. 4. 

These thoughts explain the dispersion of the 
Jews, and their detention in the lands of exile ; and 
they vindicate the Divine protection of the scattered 
people. Evil threatens them indeed. God could 
have prevented the schemes of Haman, or his rise 
to power. But it is not by keeping his people from 
trial, that he tests their graces, exhibits his mercy, 
or awakens their gratitude. He leads us through 
temptations to show our faith, and to give experience 
of his faithfulness. We shall see, as we proceed, 
that the wicked designs of an enemy to the church, 
do but set forth more gloriously God's providence 
for Zion. We shall see God the same to his peo- 
ple in all ages ; and in the church the same essential 
doctrines, the same substantial duties, the same 



THE DIVORCE OF VASHTI. 31 

salutary fears, the same exercise of faith, the same 
covenanted safety. 

But before closing the present lecture, we proposed 
to notice the first step in readiness for the great 
deliverance. This is the divorce of the haughty 
Vashti, preparatory to the elevation of a Jewish 
maiden to the throne of Persia. 

The evil against which God's providence prepares 
is not yet apparent to the eye of man ; indeed the 
plot of mischief has not as yet been conceived in 
the mind of the Agagite, the chief mover in it. What 
a comfortable reflection to the people of God is this, 
that even before the sky is overcast by the dark clouds 
of a threatening storm, there is a mind acquainted 
with all the hidden future, that even now prepares 
a deliverance from the unforeseen evil ! We know 
not why God makes such changes in our lot ; but 
all the changes around us may be directly in pre- 
paration for some great event, involving our comfort 
or safety. Even the doings of folly and the crimes 
of injustice are under his control, to subserve his 
purposes of truth and righteousness. Men may 
form their plans, and form them in iniquity ; they 
may trample upon every sacred right of others, and 
every duty in themselves ; and they may seem to 
prosper. Yet God brings to pass his purposes 
of judgment to sinners and good to the righteous ; 
the hour when the wicked seem nearest to triumph 
is often just before their irrecoverable fall ; and the 



32 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

very means relied upon for success often become 
the instruments of their failure. 

" There is a power 
Unseen, that rules the illimitable world ; 
That guides its motions from the brightest star 
To the least dust of this sin-tainted world : 
While man, who madly deems himself the lord 
Of all, is nought but weakness and dependence." 

Behold now the great Ahasuerus and the splendour 
of his festival in the palace at Shushan ! " He reigned 
from India to Ethiopia, over one hundred and twenty- 
seven provinces." What a lamentable thought that 
one man should have control, so complete and arbi- 
trary, over so many myriads of his fellow men ! How 
impossible was it for him, with all the diligence of the 
busiest life, and all the wisdom of the finest intellect, 
and all the indomitable energy of an earnest respon- 
sibility, to rule in so vast an empire, so as to secure 
the real good of his subjects ! To a man who com- 
prehends their weight, and is at all disposed to at- 
tempt the duties they bring, the cares of a great 
government are no object of envy. But what are 
the employments of this great king as we are here 
introduced to him? Such, alas! as king's palaces 
often show; neither augmenting the royal dignity, 
nor preparing for royal duties. Is this the glory of 
a kingdom ? A feast of wine, a drunken monarch, 
an unjust divorce ! 

Shall we stay to notice this gorgeous feast, ac- 
cording to the state of the king? The splendid 



THE DIVORCE OF VASHTI. 33 

hangings of the halls, the couches covered with cloth 
of gold and silver, the floor of tesselated marble, are 
even exceeded in magnificence by the drinking cups. 
It was reckoned disgraceful among the Persians to 
use vessels of earth. These were of gold, and di- 
verse one from another : i. e., as some suppose, the 
same cup not used twice during six months' feasting. 
Perhaps rather, each cup of a different pattern. 
The engraving upon a golden cup might be far more 
valuable than the material. 

We will not stay to mourn over a people whose 
rulers could afford to spend six months in such frivol- 
ous engagements, and neglect the duties of govern- 
ment. Indeed the gay luxury and idleness of Ar- 
taxerxes were a blessing to Persia, compared with 
his father's activity ; and there is less folly in the 
drunken revel of Shushan than in the man, who be- 
came angry at the waves of the sea, and scourged 
and chained the Hellespont ! Yet here are two 
matters of Persian propriety in their feasts. The 
queen and her women held their feast apart, and 
in the king's palace no man was compelled to drink 
beyond his own choice. Many a man in Christian 
lands would have been saved from a drunkard's 
grave, had not scoffing companions and a perverted 
public opinion forced upon him the fatal cup, which 
he would not have tasted if none did compel. The 
pagan king gives orders that every man may act his 
own pleasure, but inexorable and more arbitrary 
custom in Christian lands exceeds in cruel tyranny. 



34 ESTUEK AND HER TIMES. 

Happily the usages of society are better in this mat- 
ter than they were; but we fear to say that men are 
safe even now, where the wine cup sparkles. 

Six months of feasting have passed — another week 
has been added ; and the last day of so protracted 
a festival is the most important of all. But for the 
king's concluding folly the world w T ould never have 
heard of this gay feasting. A drunken man is ready 
for any folly ; and a drunken king differs from a 
drunken beggar, only because he can command the 
execution of his maudlin schemes, and lift his shame 
into greater mischief and greater notoriety. The 
most sacred things are base in the eyes of such a 
man ; and the sweet proprieties of life are in dan- 
ger of the grossest violation. An intoxicated man 
often displays his ruling passions in an indecorous 
manner. King Ahasuerus was proud of his queen's 
beauty. And now, forgetful of those Persian cus- 
toms, which forbade the public appearance of fe- 
males, and of his own duty as a husband, he gave 
orders that the beautiful Vashti should leave her own 
apartments in the palace, and appear before the im- 
pudent gaze of his drunken princes. This order 
was equally dishonourable to the king who uttered 
it, and to the queen who heard it. A man never 
more disgraces himself than when he puts an affront 
upon his own wife. 

But if the husband is drunk, the wife is sober. 
Queen Vashti refused to come. We may blame or 
approve her conduct, as we attribute it to pride, or 



THE DIVORCE OF VASHTI. 55 

to virtue. If her public appearance at her hus- 
band's command was such a violation of Persian 
ideas as to subject her to the charge of immodest 
behaviour, she did right to refuse. No father has a 
right to demand of his daughter, no husband has a 
right to command in his wife, any departure from 
modesty or virtue. It is possible, however, that the 
queen refused through pride. The command was 
perhaps imprudent ; but not reckoned immodest. In 
that case her reluctant and modest appearance, 
through respect to her husband, would have been 
right : every sensible mind would make allowance for 
her circumstances: and her modesty would have suf- 
fered nothing from the discharge of an unpleasant 
duty. 

The astounding announcement is made in the 
royal presence — The queen will not come. Flushed 
Tnth wine, the king was exceedingly angry, and the 
presence of his lords yet more irritated him. Upon 
consultation with the wise men. it was immediately 
resolved, not that the queen should be put to death, 
but that a public example should be made of her. — 
that she should be degraded from her place as queen, 
and divorced as a wife. Xo time is taken for proper 
deliberation ; no space is left for a change of pur- 
pose ; the counsellors yet feel the influence of the 
wine cup. when the unalterable decree is passed. 
It is some advantage that counsel was taken, and 
that the divorce of Yashti was pronounced accord- 
ing to law. For now no blood is shed, even in the 



36 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

wrath of the king. The design of Providence is 
quietly reached. The queenly throne of Persia is 
vacated ; the first step is taken for the great end 
which this book commemorates ; room is prepared 
for the ascent of an humble Jewish maiden to the 
highest earthly dignity ; all things move forward to 
deliver the chosen people of God. 

We may close this lecture with these brief re- 
flections. 

How perishing and unsatisfactory and unprofita- 
ble are the engagements and pleasures of worldly 
men! In the highest ranks of life, with all that 
can minister to pride or luxury, they are no ob- 
jects of envy. We see here the pomp and splen- 
dour of one of earth's mightiest kings ; and per- 
haps no earthly records make mention of a more 
sumptuous banquet than this of Ahasuerus. But 
six months of revelry soon passed ; and though 
such pernicious extravagance may have oppressed 
his subjects, and the report have astonished them, we 
are even indebted for the knowledge that such a 
feast was ever held, to a history that Persians did 
not write, and in which the mighty king of one hun- 
dred and twenty-seven provinces plays quite a sub- 
ordinate part. We may well hold in light esteem 
the revelries and luxuries of a perishable world. 
Little worthy of our envy or our imitation is the earth- 
ly course of men who say, "Let us eat and drink, for 
to-morrow we die." " Let us crown ourselves with 
rose-buds before they are withered." "The fashion 



THE DIVORCE OF VASHTI. 37 

of this world," in its best estate, "passes away." 
They only are happy whose names and deeds and 
characters are associated with the covenant people 
of God. Over them God exercises his special care; 
their names are written in imperishable annals, and 
their portion is a satisfactory and an abiding one. 
Kings, like Ahasuerus, may feast and die and be 
forgotten : queens, like Yashti, may indulge their 
pride and fall from their thrones into oblivion ; but 
the humblest of God's people, sometimes drawn forth 
from obscurity to places of honour, sometimes left 
unknown to the world, shall be noticed by his eye, 
preserved by his kind providence, and blessed with 
his favour. No wisdom is worthy of the name, but 
true piety ; no ambition can reward our care, but 
that which aspires to be accepted of God ; no plea- 
sures are lasting, but the enjoyments we find in serv- 
ing him. What is earth with the power and splen- 
dour of Ahasuerus — with all the queenly dignity 
and womanly beauty of Vashti ? " What is a man 
profited if he gain the whole world and lose his own 
soul?" This most momentous of earthly questions 
it well becomes us to ponder. 
4 



38 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 



LECTURE II. 

MORDECAI RAISED UP. 

The divorce of Vashti was pronounced after a 
consultation with legal counsellors, and ratified by 
the forms of legal authority. But what an evidence 
have we of legislative folly, not in a single man, 
but in an entire race of Persian kings, that so 
absurd a law should control the Empire ! The laws 
of the Medes and Persians were unalterable. If 
we were speaking of the laws of an infinite and 
unchanging God ; if we consider that no unforeseen 
contingencies can arise in his government ; that his 
laws, devised in infinite knowledge, wisdom, and 
justice, cannot be altered for the better ; and that 
his own excellence forbids any decline from their 
perfection ; — if we were speaking of such a ruler, and 
of his laws, we might wisely affirm that they change 
not. But in human lawgivers, or in human execu- 
tives — whether of church or state — the claim of in- 
fallibility may excite our contempt. Ignorant, 
foolish, full of prejudice, and liable to error from a 
thousand causes, man should lay no claim to un- 
swerving correctness in forming his judgments, or 



MORDECAI RAISED UP. 39 

in framing his laws ; and an unjust and oppressive 
law incapable of repeal becomes the instrument of 
more pernicious tyranny. Continual changing in 
human laws is an evil oppressive upon the people ; 
but scarcely any abuse of the power to alter the 
laws can be worse than the inability, in shortsighted 
and erring men, to change at all. 

It is possible that the king repented of his haste 
in divorcing his lovely queen. The act of a moment, 
when wine had clouded his reason and inflamed his 
anger, and when he himself had provoked her act 
of insubordination, was one which cooler moments, 
and the sweet memories of former affection, might 
wish to recall. But the monarch is himself bound 
by that foolish law ; and the act of an intoxicated 
council is as permanent as the wisest and most 
deliberate legislation. The true law of marriage, 
as ordained by Jehovah, would have forbidden a 
divorce for any such occasion as the Persian queen 
had afforded, even taking her offence in its most 
aggravated form ; but the foolish lusts of man had 
long since trampled under foot and forgotten the 
ordinances of that eternal King, whose laws need 
no improvement. It is not needful for us to say, 
that the entire plan adopted for securing a successor 
to Vashti, was a transgression of the divine laws 
respecting marriage. The Bible is remarkable for 
this ; that very often its historians give us the 
simple narrative of transactions, and make few 
remarks to approve or condemn conduct the most 



40 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

meritorious or the most iniquitous. So is it here. 
The plan adopted by the king is explained ; we are 
thus told the cruel and arbitrary customs of other 
lands and ages ; yet it is by our own comparisons 
of these facts with the principles taught in the 
Scriptures, that we learn how different all this is 
from the law of God. And as we gratefully see 
how different is the state of social manners among 
us, let us acknowledge that the difference is owing 
to the influence of the Bible and Christianity. Mar- 
riage with us is founded upon no caprice of a 
despot, but upon the mutual affection and consent 
of the parties ; it is followed by no such desolation 
and cruel desertion, worse than widowhood, as falls 
upon the crowd of imprisoned and neglected females 
in an eastern seraglio ; it secures the mutual hap- 
piness of two individuals ; and demands, if the wife 
shall give up all others for her husband alone, so 
the husband shall give up all others solely for his 
wife. For thus was it from the beginning. God 
made one man and one woman. And this is the 
true exhibition of "women's rights;" the right to 
occupy a sphere, appropriate and divinely appointed: 
a sphere as to bustle and display and vain glory in- 
ferior to that of man ; as to dignity not his equal ; 
but a sphere as to virtue and happiness and use- 
fulness often quite equal, often quite superior to 
that of man. 

No solution is even given in the narrative of the 
fact that a Jewish maiden consents to share an ar- 



MORDECAI RAISED UP. 41 

rangement that would make her the bride of a 
heathen prince ; and even Mordecai seems to make 
no effort to secure her exemption. Marriages with 
the heathen were a forbidden thing to the Jews ; 
and we would suppose that persons of so much 
piety as Esther and Mordecai, would dread her 
alliance even with the king. That they were now 
exiles in a foreign land would expose them more to 
such alliances ; but the true influence of such lia- 
bility should have been to place them more upon 
their guard. Yet we may solve the matter consis- 
tently with their piety and with all due modesty in 
Esther. The wishes of females are usually but little 
consulted in eastern marriages ; but especially when 
arrangements are made for a king's marriage, a 
family of Jewish captives could not have resisted 
his will. If the fame of the beautiful Esther had 
spread through her own neighbourhood ; if in this 
inquiry for fair young ladies, her name had been 
breathed to the king's officers, neither she nor 
Mordecai could have resisted the royal mandate. 
Force they could not use ; concealment would avail 
but little ; and entreaties would have been derided 
by men in whose eyes it was only too great an 
honour that the Jewish maiden should find even the 
meanest place in the harem of the great Ahasuerus. 
Besides, Mordecai had every confidence in the wis- 
dom and goodness of God's wonder-working provi- 
dence. This place for Esther had been none of 
his seeking or hers. The change in the king's 
4* 



42 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

household that had led to this matter, he might 
regard as providential ; and in the deep dependence 
of his people perhaps he judged that God was pre- 
paring some kindness for Israel through the influ- 
ence of a Jewish queen. It is a lesson of impor- 
tance in matters of providence, that when God 
works differently from our purposes and desires, we 
may wait quietly and hopefully for farther move- 
ments from his hand, who often deals with us better 
than our fears. When changes are wrought in our 
condition, through our own seeking, and by our 
own active instrumentality ; when voluntarily we 
have exposed ourselves to temptation, or run into 
evil, we may not justly charge our troubles to the 
orderings of Providence, or feel that they are any 
thing else than the natural results of our own folly 
and sin. But when honours come unsought ; and 
dangers appear in a path where God has led ; we 
may take even trouble as designed only to try our 
faith ; and we may rely confidently upon the gui- 
dance and protection of a faithful God. Esther 
entered the palace of Ahasuerus, all unknowing of 
that career of honour to which her God was guiding 
her. 

If Esther's selection at such a time is evidence of 
her beauty, it is pleasing to notice farther proof of 
her prudence. She made no extravagant demands 
of the officer to whom she and her companions were 
given in charge, and by her modest behaviour she 
won his esteem and secured his good offices. It is a 



MORDECAI RAISED UP. 43 

great pity when beauty is spoiled by petulance and 
indiscretion, and it greatly heightens the bloom of a 
fair cheek, when sweet tempered affability is seen in 
every dimpled smile. In the house of her cousin, 
Mordecai, she had learned to obey his wishes, and 
though not comprehending the reason of his request, 
she did not reveal the nation to which she belonged. 

The first twelve months of this new life, before 
Esther saw the king's face at all, were doubtless long 
and anxious to her and to Mordecai. Solicitous for 
his beloved ward, and desirous of knowing that she 
was well, Mordecai was constant in his attentions 
upon her, as far as the arrangements of the king's 
palace would allow. Cruel and irksome indeed were 
the social arrangements which could separate a 
maiden like Esther from the visits and the affection 
of one who had loved her in her orphanage, who 
had nurtured her in his own abode with all the af- 
fection of a father. If he had been her father, there 
would have been the same cruel separation ; and she 
who had not yet seen her husband, as a new object 
of affection, is thus secluded from all she had ever 
loved before. Long hours of dreary loneliness made 
up that first year ; and Mordecai walked every day 
before the court, perhaps in communication with 
some of the inmates, to learn what had become of 
Esther. 

We delay no longer to lament the fate of the re- 
jected candidates in this lottery matrimonial. Doubt- 
less, careless lookers-on here might say that the sue- 



44 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

cess of this or that damsel was a chance depending 
partly upon her own beauty, but chiefly upon the 
caprice or the humour of the king. But chance is 
an idea that belongs not to the believer's creed. 
We regard as sinful all dealings in lottery schemes 
and games of hazard, not only for their mischiev- 
ous tendencies, but because they imply an unwar- 
ranted appeal to the providence of God. Men have 
no right to call lightly or profanely for Divine in- 
terference, or to expect him to settle the stakes of 
the lottery, the dice-box, or the gaming-table. Strict- 
ly speaking there is no chance. God rules over 
everything. The flight of a sparrow, the fall of a 
hair, the upturning of a die, the drawing forth of 
this number or that, he regulates. "The lot is cast 
into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the 
Lord." Prov. xvi. 33. When the damsels appear 
in their succession before the king, God has already 
chosen the successor of Vashti, and the king's heart 
is in his hand to turn it where he will. Let men 
discuss, if they please, the difficulty of recognizing 
the free agency of man, while yet we acknowledge 
the efficient providence of God. But the practical 
truth is plain enough. Man is a free agent, knows 
that he is, and acts accordingly; but higher than 
man, God too is free, does his pleasure, and yet 
interferes not with man's free action. At Esther's 
turn to go in she struck all beholders With admira- 
tion — she won the king's heart. This is the lower 
link in the providential chain. But there is a higher 



MORDECAI RAISED UP. 45 

and nobler efficacy we must not overlook. It 
pleased God that the Jewish maiden should be 
queen of Persia. 

But it will be proper for us now to turn and con- 
sider another character in these interesting scenes, 
whose name has already occurred, and who bears a 
conspicuous part in the succeeding transactions. 
The cousin and protector of Esther was Mordecai, 
the Jew. The account given of his kindred is clear ; 
but the date of his birth is remarkably ambiguous ; 
and it imparts its ambiguity of date to the entire 
book of Esther. The record is, "Mordecai, the son 
of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Ben- 
jamite ; who had been carried away from Jerusalem 
with the captivity which had been carried away with 
Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar the 
king of Babylon had carried away." Esth. ii. 5, 6. 
This is very precise and explicit, except in one thing : 
we cannot decide who was carried away. Was it 
Mordecai himself ? If so, he was born in Judea ; 
and we must make the date of the book earlier than 
the end of the seventy years' captivity, or regard 
him as a very old man in these events. But the 
passage may mean that Kish was carried captive, 
and his great grandson, Mordecai, was most likely 
born in the captivity ; and the events of the book 
occurred as we have supposed, after the return. Of 
the education of Mordecai no account is given; but 
the excellence of his training is sufficiently shown 
by his conduct and his character. Mordecai was 



46 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

a man prepared, in the ordering of God's provi- 
dence, for an important exigency in the history of 
the church ; and he was fully able to meet the duties 
of the case. It is a striking thing in human history 
that Providence never wants a fitting instrument to 
further the Divine designs. To the eye of a super- 
ficial philosophy, it is the occasion that makes the 
man; calling forth his energies and enabling him to 
rise by insensible steps to the summit of complete 
success. And no doubt there could not be a man 
without the occasion either forming him to meet it, 
or formed by him through the energy of his will. 
But there is a wiser and higher and holier philoso- 
phy, that looks beyond the views and the instru- 
mentality of man ; and which, discerning the great 
scope of human history, acknowledges in all, the 
overruling wisdom of a Divine Providence. This 
working of God's power in the events of human his- 
tory may especially be discerned, when we consider 
these thoughts : 

1. The great men of the earth, whether good or 
evil, alike subserve the purposes of God. Men of 
different characters, some great in goodness, and some 
in wickedness ; some in ambition, like Alexander, 
and some in patriotism, like Washington, are raised 
up for important purposes, and to accomplish great 
things ; and by the instrumentality of botli good 
and evil, God's plans are carried out. The imper- 
fection of our knowledge, and the difficulty of dis- 
cerning the just relation of one tiling to another in 



MORDECAI RAISED UP. 47 

the philosophy of human history, makes the proof 
of this less full ; yet it may be satisfactory. Who 
can question that Divine Providence raised up such 
a man as George Washington ; and by the exact 
place and period of his birth ; by the precise cir- 
cumstances of his education ; by the wonderful 
prudence and propriety, rather than by the daz- 
zling brilliancy of his character, fitted him to 
become the leader of the American armies, and the 
father of a mighty nation on this Western Hemis- 
phere ? And if the mind is disposed to start back 
from supposing that, by the orderings of that same 
Providence, the mighty mind of Napoleon Bonaparte 
was prepared to take a more active, and in one sense, 
a more splendid part in the troubled revolutions of 
modern Europe ; we need but rise to a higher eleva- 
tion, and take a wider and larger view of human af- 
fairs. We can then vindicate the ways of God to man ; 
we can keep the reins of government still in the hands 
of the Almighty ; and we can see his guidance and 
control even in the outbreaks of human passions ; 
and in causing guilty revolutions and disastrous wars 
to effect his purposes. Let it but be remembered, 
that the God of nations is a God of justice ; that 
war is his scourge, and that the mighty conquerors 
of earth are as the staff of his indignation to smite 
the guilty. Isa. x. 5. Was there no cause that the 
vials of his wrath should be poured out upon 
France? Was there no reason vindicating the Di- 
vine allowance, that a reign of terror should deso- 



48 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

late the gay palaces of Paris; that anarchy and dis- 
cord should cover the vine-clad hills of France ; 
that her sons should melt upon the sands of Sahara, 
and strew thickly the battlefields of central Europe, 
and freeze beneath the snows of Russia? There 
was a long settlement of guilt to make by the God of 
justice with that people. France became drunk with 
the enchantments of Rome, that she might persecute 
the Albigenses ; and in the delirium of fanaticism, 
she poured out like water the blood of her own 
best children in massacres like that of St. Barthol- 
omew ; and this delirium w x as followed by the insan- 
ity of Atheism and the avenging madness of the 
reign of terror. If there ever was a people to whom 
it was fitting that Providence should give blood to 
drink, ( for they were worthy of it, ) that people 
was the French ; and the terrible wars of which 
Napoleon was the master spirit ; the immense des- 
truction of their people which they willingly endured 
in the fanaticism of their attachment to him ; and 
their still enduring curse of agitation and restless- 
ness, are the judgments of His hand, who rules the 
earth in righteousness ; and who can use good and 
bad men to carry out his purposes. The power that 
raises a man fit for great occasions, just as he is 
needed, is the all-seeing, all-controlling providence 
of the mighty God. 

2. The workings of his hand in the affairs of hu- 
man history are further evident from the remarka- 
ble fact that the great men of the world can never 



MORDECAI RAISED UP. 49 

themselves project, much less foresee the changes 
which they are instrumental in effecting. 

There is a sense, so far as human agency is con- 
cerned, in which human history is one long chapter 
of accidents : great events appear to occur fortuit- 
ously, and they surprise the chief actors themselves. 
But the design is too wise to be ascribed to accident, 
and even stupid worldlings often admire and say, 
What hath God wrought ! Take almost any exam- 
ple in the history of man. When Luther began to 
preach against indulgences, it was the farthest from 
his thoughts to break away from the Papal church 
and to preach the Reformation. He was in heart 
and soul loyal to the Pope, and idolized the figment 
of a church with the same fallacy that now deludes 
a bigoted Romanist, and allows him to put the per- 
verted institutions of Jesus Christ above Christ him- 
self. Luther was led on step by step to the accom- 
plishment of his great work ; and the finger of God 
is seen in the very fact that he knew not for what 
he was working. The enemies of Luther have cast 
it up as a reproach, that he professed for a while to 
acknowledge the Pope, and then threw off the mask. 
They call him, therefore, a hypocrite. No judg- 
ment is more erroneous, or more unphilosophical. 
Luther acted as men always act who come forth 
gradually from error to truth ; who lose one and an- 
other false perception as they advance, and who 
thus are inconsistent at different periods of life, 
without being hypocritical. Saul of Tarsus was no 
5 



50 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

hypocrite, though once he destroyed the faith he af- 
terwards established. Luther acted and wrote and 
effected, just as we might expect in one who had no 
large plan of his own to accomplish such things ; 
but who was a mere underworkman, often misunder- 
standing, and never comprehending the designs of 
the principal Architect. No man, that has the en- 
tire matter in his own hands, ever attempts to build 
a house without settling upon his plan beforehand, 
and arranging his materials accordingly. Such ar- 
rangement Luther did not make. In truth the plan 
was not his, and the very fact that he went forward 
not knowing whither he went, and yet succeeded in 
effecting a Reformation, so much needed and so salu- 
tary, is proof that a higher wisdom guided him for- 
ward. 

But these things are no more true of the great 
Reformation, than they are of other great changes 
in the history of man. When the American Colo- 
nists took up arms against Great Britain, it was 
with no design of asserting their independence. 
The warmest expressions of loyalty were made by 
some of the most undoubted friends of liberty ; the 
war was in progress for more than a year before the 
Declaration of Independence was published ; and 
not by the wisdom and foresight of man, but by the 
gradual leadings of Divine Providence was our path 
opened to national existence. The thought may be 
applied not only to great events. It is applicable 
in a measure to the life and doings of every living 



MORDECAI RAISED UP. 51 

man. No man ever yet spent his life according to 
his own plans for spending it. " A man's heart de- 
viseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps." 
God's hand may be traced in the plans of our lives, 
and in the influences we exert around us ; for we are 
but instruments to carry forward his designs. 

The truth then that the results of our most intel- 
ligent agency are so largely unforeseen, that step by 
step each man goes on to unexpected duties and un- 
expected results, and that usually even the largest 
usefulness grows not so much from the settled design 
and purpose to do this very thing, shows the provi- 
dence of God in preparing men for important places 
in life. We detract nothing from the honour due to 
a good and great man who nobly does the duty set 
before him, nor are we negligent to urge that men 
should form and prosecute the most earnest plans 
for doing good. But let us carefully watch provi- 
dential indications ; be ready to embrace them and 
improve them ; and feel that we shall stand most 
approved before the eye of God, when we have been 
most ready to do the work he has prepared for us. 
These thoughts will reappear as we proceed in the 
narrative. 

We may add, 3d, that the workings of Divine Pro- 
vidence in the affairs of men are more clearly seen, 
if we notice that in every great matter for human 
good, there are so many different agents, acting at 
so many different times, and under such different in- 
fluences, yet all concurring to the one great end, so 



52 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

that philosophically we are forced to acknowledge 
the presiding mind of one Supreme Intelligence. 
Look again at the providence of God in the estab- 
lishing of our own great Republic. Let us suppose 
that it was the Divine design to establish on this 
continent the home of true religion and of civil lib- 
erty, and to set up a power whose influence should 
be at once wide and salutary upon the interests of 
the race. This we firmly and devoutly believe. 
But the steps to secure this great end imply the 
omission of so many things which man would have 
done ; the postponement of so many events which 
man would have hastened ; the averting of so many 
threatening evils which man would have feared ; the 
nice adjustment to each other of so many distinct 
things and widely separated, wdiich man would have 
thought not at all connected ; and the concentration 
of so many energies, of times and persons and oc- 
currences, into one point; that Divine wisdom is 
alone competent to form the plan, and Divine power 
alone able to carry it into execution. We can name 
but a few of those strange things which man did 
not do in the wrong time to defeat God's purposes, 
and which man did do in the right time to carry out 
the high designs that man could not possibly fore- 
see. Man did not discover this Western Continent 
in those ages, before the providence of God had made 
the needful preparations for planting such a nation 
as this. Look back over the pathway of history, 
and put your finger on the time, if you can, so fit 



MORDECAI RAISED UP. 53 

for the discovery of America by Columbus as the 
very period when it occurred. Had this discovery 
been made one hundred or one thousand years be- 
fore, the superstitions of Popery and the gloom of 
the dark ages would have covered two continents in- 
stead of one ; the mighty energies of Europe, which 
were misspent to carry on the Crusades, would have 
borne their hordes of men across the broad Atlantic, 
rather than the length of the Mediterranean ; and 
would have employed their fanaticism more disas- 
trously for human interests than against the Sara- 
cen, in converting the pagan Indians after the mode 
that Spain converted Mexico, and in subduing these 
fair territories to the authority of the triple crown ; 
and in such a case the increased power of the man 
of sin would have held the yoke of bondage for lon- 
ger generations upon the necks of men. 

Again, the declaration of American independ- 
ence did not occur one year too soon or too late. 
Had our forefathers declared themselves free and 
independent, and maintained their stand at a period 
earlier by twenty-five years, it would have been a 
calamity deeply to be regretted. If in 1757 the 
entire territory on North America claimed by the 
sovereigns of Europe, had been divided into twenty- 
five parts, the French claimed and seemed to possess 
twenty parts, the Spaniards four, and the English 
one.* If instead of the old French war, the en- 

* Bancroft's U. S., iv. 276. 
5* 



54 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

ergies of the colonists had been employed in waging 
hostilities with the mother country for their freedom, 
and the conflict had been successful, the territory 
secured to the new government and to the rule of 
Protestant principles would have been no larger, at 
the most than the old thirteen States. During 
that old French war, Canada and our entire north 
western territory and even western Pennsylvania 
were wrested from the French. What a different 
destiny had belonged to the North American Re- 
public if all the lands north of the St. Lawrence 
and of the Ohio, had remained in the hands of the 
Romanists ! What prospect had there been of a 
great Christian state, rising here to power, and 
wealth, and freedom, and influence, if, with Quebec 
and Montreal, with Fort du Quesne, and Detroit, 
and St. Louis, with Natchez, New Orleans, Mobile, 
Pensacola, and St. Augustine, three sides of our nar- 
row confines had been surrounded by a cordon of 
garrisons, officered by the Jesuits ? And the suc- 
cessful declaration of American independence twenty- 
five years earlier would have secured this result. 
Little did England suppose in that old war that she 
was fighting a battle for a nation like this, which at no 
subsequent time could we have fought for ourselves; 
for it is by the possession of these territories that 
we have acquired the strength to retain and enlarge 
them. Just as little did the men who took these 
preparatory steps, foresee the great end towards 
which they all tended, as the prattling child, with 



MORDECAI RAISED UP. 55 

tottering steps, foresees the active and earnest 
engagements which his manhood brings upon him. 
And shall we regard these matters as occurring by 
chance, because evidently no man had the planning 
of them ? No, we cannot ! The Grod of Providence 
laid his designs, noted the proper time for each 
occurrence, raised up proper instruments as each 
was needed, blessed this people with wise rulers, 
overruled even the wickedness of men, and we trust, 
will be our Gcodfor ever and ever. 

But we return from these reflections to speak of 
the man, whose history called them forth. We 
suppose that Mordecai, during the four years that 
passed from the divorce of Vashti, until the mar- 
riage of Esther, had secured some humble employ- 
ment connected with the palace ; for he sat in the 
King's gate. This was doubtless to enable him 
the more easily to learn the estate of Esther, or 
perhaps by her favour, that a quiet communication 
might be carried on between them. His position 
here gave him an opportunity to detect a conspir- 
acy against the king's life. Life in a palace has 
its dangers as well as its luxuries, its cares as well 
as its dignities. What provocation had been given 
to the conspirators, or injury inflicted upon them, we 
are not informed. Perhaps they were the mere 
tools of some noble aspirant to the throne. Judg- ■ 
ing by the king's hasty wrath against Vashti, it is 
not unlikely he had given occasion to their anger. 
We are not to expect true peace or solid friendship 



56 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

in such spheres of life. Where persons form for 
each other a true and lasting attachment, they must 
be more upon an equality ; at least there must be 
less room for dependence and fear, than exists be- 
tween a courtier and a despot. Without denying 
that true loyalty and even affection may exist for 
such a monarch, we must own that he stands in 
great personal danger, from the passions or the fears 
of his very attending servants. 

Mordecai discovered the plot against the life of 
the king. As a captive Jew, he might have felt 
not bound in honour or conscience to reveal it ; he 
might even have looked upon the king as the op- 
pressor of his own people, and have joined in the 
plot for his destruction. But it is one thing for a 
captive to assassinate a ruler, and quite another 
to rise up in arms with his captive brethren to vin- 
dicate their freedom. And this prince had been 
no more rigorous against the Jews than others had 
been, or his successor might be. Besides, the 
prophets of God had expressly commanded the 
Jews to seek the good of the country where they 
were. And now that his beloved Esther was the 
wife of the king, Mordecai was more earnestly 
loyal. 

Mordecai discovered the plot, and having com- 
munication with Esther, he made it known to the 
ears of the king, through her means. It was one 
of the follies of the Persian monarch, that few per- 
sons had direct access to him ; and any attempt on 



MORDECAI RAISED UP. 57 

the part of Mordecai to give warning through 
others at court, might have ended only in failure to 
reach the king at all, and in the destruction of the 
informer. In signifying the tidings to the king in 
Mordecai's name, Esther appears anxious to secure 
some advantage to him ; but it seems strange that 
she does not take the most natural vray for it. 
Why did she not tell her loyal consort, that, when 
she was an orphan child, this Mordecai had been to 
her as a father ; and ask his aid to repay her debt 
of gratitude ? When this signal benefit had been 
done to her and to her husband, by defeating the 
plot against his life, why did she not say, The man 
who discovered this is my kinsman ? The explana- 
tion tells us the modesty and humility, perhaps the 
faith of Mordecai. He forbade it. It tells us as 
much of the respect and love he had won from 
Esther, that the queen was still obedient to his 
wishes, as she had been when under his roof and in 
his power. 

The detected conspirators were punished ; but it 
was a trial of faith to Esther and Mordecai that no 
special notice was taken of him by whose informa- 
tion they were defeated. Record was made of the 
fact ; a poor recompense for so eminent a service. 
For who would read those musty pages, or care for 
the barren acknowledgment to an obscure individual? 
And to us there seems no connection between this 
record and the train of the narrative. Yet we shall 
afterwards see, that this very deed of Mordecai and 



58 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

the modesty which forbade Esther to press his claims 
for preferment, are made the nice and important 
hinge upon which rests and turns the issue of a great 
victory. And here indeed is an invaluable lesson 
of human life. There are no trifles in character 
and conduct. There is scarcely an evil deed or 
word or thought in all our past history whose im- 
portance or whose connections for mischief, we are 
able to trace ; and any one, for all we can do to hinder 
it, may start forward, at some unexpected moment, 
into remembrance and prominence to punish our sin- 
fulness. There is scarcely a good deed or thought 
or word in the past, though we may have esteemed 
it forgotten, useless, or unrequited, that may not 
start forward, like a seed buried in the dust of a 
long drought, but now quickened into life and energy 
and usefulness, greater than our most ardent hopes. 
Our deeds and thoughts are the seeds of things ; as 
to quantity no man can possibly tell how much fruit 
a seed will yield ; as to its nature, every seed brings 
forth its own kind. Wicked thoughts or wicked 
deeds never blessed any man in themselves, or in 
their fruits. Happy was it for Mordecai, when the 
chronicles of the empire were read before the king, 
that the record of his name was blended with a good 
and not with an evil deed, and that his reward was 
accordingly. And happy for us, when the records 
are examined of a greater empire, when the books 
shall be opened before the sleepless King of kings, 
if our names, which are surely recorded there, if 



MORDECAI RAISED UP. 59 

our deeds, which in that day shall surely not be for- 
gotten, shall call forth the smile of approval from 
our Eternal Sovereign, and the blessed mandate to 
the waiting angels, " Clothe with the royal apparel 
of everlasting righteousness, and deck with a crown 
of unfading glory, the man whom the king delight- 
eth to honour." There are chronicles whose records 
never fade ! May our names and deeds, however 
humble, be so written there as to appear unto glory 
and honour and immortality and eternal life. 

But we pause here again for a concluding reflec- 
tion. 

What reason now had Esther to thank and praise 
the God of . her fathers ! But a little while ago, a 
captive and an orphan ; and holding that dangerous 
possession for a friendless girl, the pearl of beauty ! 
and now she sits upon the throne, the queen of Per- 
sia ! How dazzling the elevation ! how splendid her 
success ! Ah brethren ! that is a dangerous mistake 
indeed ; yet it is one often made by man in his es- 
timate of human life. Why do we even allow our- 
selves for one moment to think, that the most ele- 
vated positions in life can add dignity to its posses- 
sor ? The true dignity in every case belongs to the 
man, to his qualifications, to his virtues, to his be- 
coming behaviour in his place of influence. Place 
and power are not themselves the objects of envy ; 
a man elevated to a post he is unable to fill, is de- 
graded in the eyes of all beholders. Every advance 
in life has its risk ; the higher a man is lifted, the 



GO ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

more we expect of him ; and a statue of giant size 
when near the ground, dwindles to a pigmy upon a 
lofty pillar. No greater calamity can befall any 
man than to be called from an humble sphere of use- 
fulness he is competent to fill, to a place of dignity 
which he has not the capacity to adorn, and where 
his defects are lifted into public notoriety. Well 
says the poet, 

u Honour and shame from no condition rise ; 
Act well your part : there all the honour lies." 

But elevated condition increases responsibility and 
demands more earnest efforts. It remains to be 
seen concerning Esther, whether her elevation to a 
throne is to be a blessing or a curse to herself and 
others. If virtue remains the brightest diamond in 
her coronet ; if the pearls of modesty, humility, and 
piety still compose her necklace ; if her adorning is 
a meek and quiet spirit ; and if a useful train of 
good deeds accomplished, follows the footsteps of 
the stately queen, then all hail to the Jewish maiden's 
coronation ! 

And just so with us. The value of life and of 
any position, any wealth, any honours, we hold in 
it, will depend upon the use we make of them. Your 
responsibility to God lies in this very thing — that 
you are using well the advantages given, not to your 
neighbour, but to you. Your soul ! are you secur- 
ing its salvation ? Your time ! are you using it to 
prepare for eternity ? Your influence ! is it cxer- 



M0RDECAI RAISED UP. 61 

cised for good in a world where it is needed ? " He 
that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much." 
If you are not living and feeling and doing right, 
just in that position where God has placed you, you 
would be equally, and possibly more, delinquent in 
any desirable circumstances for which you long. 
6 



62 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 



LECTURE III. 

HAMAN, THE MAGNIFICENT. 

The scene changes ; and a new character, des- 
tined to act an important part in this eventful his- 
tory is introduced to our notice. He comes forward 
with high claims upon our reverence ; and demands 
from us the bow of respect. The foundation of his 
claim is the fact that he is the favourite of the 
king ; but too often the favourite of a monarch is a 
selfish minion, deserving only the hatred and the con- 
tempt of the people. It is almost a necessary evil 
in the courts of despotic princes, that there is no 
access to the ear of the king for the voice of whole- 
some truth ; that the chief aim of his courtiers is to 
flatter his vanity and thus secure his favour ; and 
that better men are crowded away, because to such 
fawning and falsehood they will not stoop. It is 
proof sufficient that a despotism is an unnatural, as 
well as an unwholesome state of society, when it thus 
tends to elevate bad men rather than good ; and 
when the proverb is so often verified, that "truth 
is seldom found in the palace of kings. " We have 
already seen and shall again see the proof that this 



HAMAN, THE MAGNIFICENT 63 

king Ahasuerus was neither a great, a wise, nor a 
good man ; and though he was blessed in Esther 
with a wise and pious wife, through whose influence 
he was sometimes le.d to the right, we have proof 
here of his folly and weakness in these facts, that 
he had a man at court who was his favourite ; that 
this favourite was chiefly eminent for his vanity 
and his vices ; and that especially to such a weak, 
bad man, without inquiry and without restraint, the 
king should commit the control of schemes so vast 
and important. 

But let us not anticipate. Our first attention 
may be turned to the man himself, and to his race 
and connections, as furnishing a key to subsequent 
transactions. This man's name was Haman. East- 
ern names are significant more frequently than 
among us ; and if traced to a Persian root, this 
name signifies the splendid, or the magnificent. 
Haman the magnificent is a title to which such 
a man would eagerly aspire. As to origin, he was 
an Agagite. We know not where to ascribe this 
name, except to the ancient race of the kings of 
Amalek. It is no disproof of this, that in the 
apocryphal chapters of this book, Haman is called a 
Macedonian ; it rather proves that these chapters are 
of more recent date, when the kingdom of Macedon 
had become powerful by the ability and success of 
Philip and Alexander. The opinion that, as an 
Agagite, Haman was a descendant of Amalek, is as 
old at least as the days of the Jewish historian 



64 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

Josephus, who expressly affirms it. Who the Amal- 
ekites were, we can easily learn. They were among 
the most ancient people upon the face of the earth ; 
they are mentioned by Moses as early as the days 
of Abraham, Gen. xiv. 7 ; and they are called by 
Balaam the first of the nations. Num. xxiv. 20. 
Between them and the children of Israel the enmity 
was long continued and mortal. They w T ere the 
first people with whom the Israelites had a battle 
after they came forth from the Egyptian cap- 
tivity ; * and their attack upon Moses was so un- 
provoked and cruel, that Jehovah swore that his 
people should have war with Amalek from genera- 
tion to generation, until, as a people, they should 
be blotted out from under heaven. It was against 
this cruel people that the first king of Israel was 
sent to wage an exterminating warfare ; and it was 
for his sin in sparing them that Saul was rejected 
from his place. 1 Sam. xv. And after their mon- 
arch had been made a captive, it was in righteous 
retribution for his cruelties, and to fulfil the long- 
standing curse of Jehovah, that the prophet Samuel 
" hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord." Though 
Saul failed to execute his commission, David did 
much to destroy this people, and perhaps com- 
pletely broke their power as a nation, when he 
defeated them after the destruction of Ziklag. 
1 Sam. xxx. Yet even then four hundred men 

* Exod. xvii. 8. Some suppose this is Balaam's meaning, 
Num. xxiv. 20. 



HAMAN, THE MAGNIFICENT. 65 

escaped ; and the scattered sons of Amalek, might 
long afterwards be found among the nations. As 
Agag was doubtless a common designation of their 
kings, like Pharaoh among the Egyptian monarchs, 
and Caesar among the Roman emperors, Haman 
was probably a descendant of the royal line ; though 
the words of Samuel may perhaps forbid us to re- 
gard him as the descendant of the king whom that 
prophet slew. The pride of birth for so ancient a 
people, and such a long line of royal descent, may 
have been maintained for many generations after 
Amalek was scattered ; especially when the weak- 
ness of the fallen family gave no cause of jealousy 
in the lands where they were exiled. Indeed 
Haman possesses before us just such a character 
as we might expect, in one who plumed himself 
upon his ancient pedigree, and had little else to re- 
commend him. 

But this man, Haman, of polite manners and flat- 
tering lips, is the favourite of the Persian court; 
king Ahasuerus advances him above all other princes ; 
and the king's servants bow down to reverence him 7 
This usually follows as a thing of course ; nor is it 
always wrong. There is a respect due to men in 
high places ; and it is proper to reverence according 
to their office those that are in authority. But how 
empty and shallow is the applause often bestowed 
upon such favourites ! The smiles that met the eye 
of Haman were no index of the inner homage of 
6* 



6G ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

the heart ; but the flattery of sycophants, who had 
learned in the court 

" To crook the pliant hinges of the knee 
Where thrift may follow fawning." 

But as in chemical experiments, a few drops in the 
retort will sometimes change entirely the colour, and 
even the qualities of the liquid it contains ; so, en- 
vious flatteries turn to bitter hatred at the first breath 
of adversity; and the men who now bow so obse- 
quiously before Hainan's robes of purple, will soon 
be as ready to point the way to Haman's ignomini- 
ous gallows. 

But there was one man in the court of Persia who 
saw the splendour of Haman the magnificent, 
and yet " bowed not nor did him reverence." Though 
urged to do it by motives of self-interest and personal 
safety, by the command of the king, and by daily 
solicitations from both friendly and hostile voices ; 
this man, who standing alone was beneath the scorn of 
Haman, who held only an inferior post in the gate 
of the palace, uncovered not his brow and bowed not 
'down his head at the approach of the favourite. 
Yet there is something here far different from stub- 
bornness or incivility. We miss it much, if we ad- 
mire only the independence of Mordecai in his be- 
haviour before Haman. It may be true that this 
man Haman was unworthy of the respect he now 
demanded; that only by the partiality of a deluded 
king was so proud and cruel a man in such a station; 
and that Mordecai was right in refusing to act the 



67 

hypocrite before a man whom he clearly understood 
and thoroughly despised. But his resolute inde- 
pendence is dictated by a deeper and more worthy 
feeling. Mordecai acted thus for conscience sake. 
He saw in Haman a hated Amalekite ; a man abid- 
ing, with his race, under the just curse of Israel's 
God ; and before such a man he had no respect to 
show, no homage to pay. It is true Haman was now 
possessed of great power ; and Mordecai might easily 
know that he would be disposed to use it, not simply 
for his personal destruction, but for the peril of all 
the Jews. Herein is the very strength of Morde- 
cai's faith : that he will not violate his conscience, 
nor give any tokens of a respect he does not feel, 
though he knew that the Agagite would soon no- 
tice his disrespect ; would learn his Jewish kindred ; 
and would, in all likelihood, kindle his rage against 
the Jewish people. But Mordecai's faith rests upon 
the covenant of his God. The power now is in the 
hands of an enemy to* his race; but he fears not 
that power so long as he knew Jehovah's recorded 
curse against the Amalekites, and Jehovah's re- 
corded covenant for his chosen people. We admire 
the courage and resolution of Mordecai when we 
trace it to such an origin. It is a principle indeed 
rather of the Jewish than of the Christian economy ; 
in our age we know no race so under a special curse 
that we must avoid all intercourse with them. But 
it is in him the settled principle of a conscientious 
man, who knows no reason for consulting his safety 



68 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

or his popularity by bowing before an enemy of God ; 
■who even for the protection of his entire people 
chooses rather to trust in the Lord than to put con- 
fidence in such a prince. And we may not omit to 
add that Mordecai was not mistaken in the estimate 
he put upon Haman. The Agagite wanted but an 
opportunity to show that he had all the antipathies 
of his people against the living God ; and that he 
was fully disposed to do all in his power to crush the 
chosen people. 

The conduct of Mordecai could not long remain 
unnoticed by Haman. The man could doubtless 
have remained concealed in the crowd of unregarded 
attendants on the court ; and perhaps with all the 
evil instincts of his race, the striking features of the 
Jew might not have attracted the Amalekite's atten- 
tion, if he had not brought observation upon him- 
self by his singularity. A single spot of ink upon 
a sheet of white paper ; a single fertile spot in a 
desert ; a single light in a wide waste of darkness ; 
or a single star in a cloudy sky, will attract immedi- 
ate attention ; and Mordecai is singled out, because 
he is unlike the bowing crowds around him. It 
seems the extreme of rashness in such a man, thus 
to draw towards himself the fixed gaze of such a 
prince, whose absorbing feelings, derived by long in- 
heritance from his royal line, are pride of station 
and vengeance against the Jews. Is not this man 
rash to provoke the hatred of ages, and to sting the 
pride of a mortal and powerful foe? Yes, both rash 



69 

and foolish ; if we introduce not another reflection : 
that conscience dictated the resolute action of Mor- 
decai, and faith sustained him in it. And shall not 
this man escape from the very insignificance of his 
position, compared with the exalted dignity of Ha- 
inan ? Are not scorn and contempt, vices sufficient- 
ly kindred to pride, to allow that a worm may in- 
sult Haman and yet not be crushed beneath his 
haughty heel ? However this may be, the other ele- 
ment, to which we have alluded, comes in here to 
embitter this conflict ; to enlarge its boundaries ; to 
make it no longer a personal, but a national affair ; 
to elevate it into a conflict in which were involved 
the religious interests of all succeeding time ; to in- 
troduce the faithfulness of Jehovah himself as a 
party in the strife ; and far beyond the stretch of 
Haman' s thoughts, to secure his certain downfall. 
It was no insignificant word that was addressed to 
Hainan's ear when it was told him that Mordecai 
was a Jew. Ages of implacable hatred were em- 
bodied in the word ; the revenge of his smitten an- 
cestry and his scattered people seemed placed within 
his reach ; and this important line expresses the 
deep feeling of Haman, " He thought scorn to lay 
hands on Mordecai alone." 

His resolution is taken to destroy the entire na- 
tion of the Jews. But the vain superstitions of 
paganism, invoked to his assistance, are overruled 
in the orderings of Providence, for salutary pur- 
poses. The heathen, in ancient and modern times, 



70 ESTHER AND HER TIxMES. 

have been accustomed to regard what they call 
lucky and unlucky days ; and to look for the suc- 
cess or failure of their enterprises, according to their 
auspicious or unhappy beginning. Among the 
Chinese, now, the burial of a friend will sometimes 
be postponed for days and even for many months, 
if the priests cannot determine a lucky day and a 
lucky place for the interment. We do not even 
need to go so far as China. Among a people of 
better religious light and higher civilization than 
the Chinese, there is one day of the week which 
prevalent superstition has marked as unfortunate 
above all the rest ; and paganism has hold enough 
upon the heart of many a Christian, to prevent him 
from beginning any enterprise upon a Friday. 
Haman had this superstition ; and the lot was cast 
before him " from day to day and from month to 
month to the twelfth month," to find a lucky day 
for his undertaking. We understand that, as in the 
case of Achan, first the tribe of the unknown trans- 
gressor, and then the family, and then the man, 
were determined by lot, Josh, vii.; so here first 
the names of the months were put in the urn, and 
then the numbers of the days, and from these the 
selection was made. The day pointed out for 
Haman was lucky indeed ; but not # for him ; nor in 
the sense he meant it. Haman is fighting against the 
God of heaven ; and " there is no wisdom nor coun- 
sel against the Lord." In the orderings of that Pro- 
vidence where no event occurs by chance, the last 



1 



HA MAX, THE MAGNIFICENT. 71 

month of the year and the twelfth day were chosen ; 
nearly a year must elapse before the dawning of 
that great day. Thus full opportunity was given to 
Mordecai and Esther to lay their plans in opposi- 
tion to his ; and to the Jews to prepare for flight or 
defence. God causes " the wrath of man to praise" 
him. An earlier day might have been disastrous. 
The very deliberation of Hainan's malice gives oc- 
casion to his failure, and signalizes the prophet's 
words, " The Lord is known by the judgment which 
he executeth; the wicked is snared in the work of 
his own hands." Psa. ix. 16. 

The agency of the king is needed for the next 
act in these eventful scenes. How well Haman 
had calculated upon his credulous confidence, may 
be seen from his fixing upon the day for the indis- 
criminate massacre of all the Jews in the empire, 
before he had secured the royal consent. We may 
well mourn for the lamentable lot of any people 
over whom reigns such a heartless monarch as 
Ahasuerus. Elsewhere indeed he gives evidence 
of excellent qualities ; and in the end he becomes 
the protector of the Jews ; but no acts of rectitude 
or of compensatory justice can atone for the inex- 
cusable thoughtlessness — to use the lightest term 
— of a decree like this. A mighty king, the ruler 
over a hundred states, with the lives of millions at 
his disposal, without inquiry and without reserve, 
delivers thousands of his subjects to death with an 
unconcern that scarcely a wealthy shepherd would 



72 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

show in ordering the brute members of his flock to 
the slaughter. We make no apology ; we know of 
none that can be made for the king of Persia. 
The only semblance of it, is his full confidence in 
his prime minister ; and doubtless the Agagite made 
an artful representation to gain his point. But the 
proposal to massacre an entire people should have 
excited the king's attention under any disguise ; 
and if, when excited by wine and surrounded by 
revelry, the queen may not be divorced without a 
conference with his counsellors, it is strange that a 
matter of this magnitude should cost not a single 
thought, and be thus summarily committed to the 
caprice of a favourite. 

Haman presented his request with subtilty ; ex- 
pecting doubtless that it would be harder to secure 
than he really found it. His representation re- 
specting the Jews contained just sufficient truth to 
make it plausible, to carry conviction to an indo- 
lent and inattentive mind ; and yet it was a false 
and malicious statement of the true standing of that 
people. He spoke of a race of men scattered 
abroad among all the provinces ; having laws of 
their own, different from the usual laws of the em- 
pire ; disposed to set the laws of the king at defi- 
ance ; and able from their scattered condition to 
stir up rebellion against the king's authority. It is 
refutation sufficient of all these charges to say that 
afterwards it was by no serious denial of them, that 
the Jewish deliverance was effected. If the mind 



HAMAN, THE MAGNIFICENT. 73 

of Ahasuerus, as a wise and politic king, had at 
this time been intelligently convinced by the argu- 
ments of Hainan, then the judgment would not 
have been reversed, nor the Agagite condemned to 
death upon the mere discovery that his beloved 
queen was one of the destined victims. If the 
original judgment was just, it was an accident on 
the part of Haman to include Esther ; and the re- 
sult is proof enough, that the king made no inquiry 
into the matter, and rested his decision upon no 
pondering of weighty arguments. 

We may be free to acknowledge, that in the plea 
of Haman against the Jews there was a partial 
exhibition of truth ; yet so used as to do that peo- 
ple the grossest injustice. Unquestionably they 
had laws diverse from the laws of the realm ; and 
maxims superior in excellence to all that Persia 
knew ; and ideas of freedom greatly differing from 
the usual ideas of arbitrary kings ; and conscien- 
tious convictions such as no exercise of tyrannical 
power could overcome. But all these were qualities 
of sterling excellence, which every wise prince 
should know how to appreciate ; which might make 
them formidable to tyrants, but only the more valu- 
able as the subjects of an upright prince. That 
ruler over any people who is jealous of upright and 
sterling virtues, that may even sometimes come in 
conflict with his own plans, is fit to govern only 
beasts, and not men. A ruler of men should wish 

them to be men, and should aspire to govern them 

7 



74 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

as such. For, the true policy is, that the higher 
the dignity of the state in the character of its citi- 
zens, the higher rank does the ruler take among the 
princes of the earth. The king of a million sav- 
ages is a less dignified potentate than the ruler of 
a thousand enlightened freemen. For the charac- 
ter and not the number of a people gives dignity 
to the commonwealth. These indeed may be ideas 
far above the thoughts of the Persian king ; but 
they are just, and the justice of them should have 
given the amplest protection to the exiled Jews. 

We may notice that all these events occur in that 
natural order which belongs to current events 
around us ; and that the wickedness of Haman, 
like the daily wickedness of our times, expects to 
find success in the use of appropriate measures. 
Ahasuerus was easily persuaded ; but Haman was 
prepared to give plausible reasons for the measures 
he proposed. Every scheme of wickedness has its 
apologies ; so much so that men ought to suspect 
every scheme too fairly presented, and stand in 
doubt of the man who is the smoothest in his apolo- 
gies. 

Hainan's personal influence secured the consent 
of the monarch ; and the large amount pledged to 
the treasury is surrendered as of no importance. 
Had Ahasuerus been a wise and prudent prince, the 
offer of so large a sum of money would have awak- 
ened suspicion, and called forth inquiry. The truth 
is, Haman overshot the mark. Men never bid so 



HAMAN, THE MAGNIFICENT. 75 

high without some great object to gain. And as 
wicked men often contradict themselves, there was 
an inconsistency in the statements of the crafty Aga- 
gite. He represents the people as unprofitable to 
the king ; and yet offers to pay for their destruction, 
an immense amount of money as compensatory of the 
loss the empire would sustain. Surely Hainan had 
here overreached himself, had he addressed any, but 
the partial ear of a foolish monarch. But favouritism 
is blind and deaf; and if the king saw at all, it was 
with a morbid vision, which magnified the generosity 
of Haman, and refused to take advantage of it. 
The king can afford to be as liberal as his servant ; 
and Haman receives the credit without the cost of 
his offer. Even this, however, with every other 
early success, aggravates the coming downfall. 

We are so accustomed to a man's own proper sig- 
nature to every document, that it requires a mo- 
ment's reflection to recall, that, if the art of print- 
ing is of modern invention, the arts of reading and 
writing are so connected with it, that they never 
were in very general use before the era of the print- 
ing press. The reported ignorance of days far later 
than the times of Ahasuerus, may excite our su- 
preme amazement. Noble princes and dignified ec- 
clesiastics too ignorant to write then- own names 
were common personages in Europe but a few cen- 
turies ago ; the very word signature is derived from 
the fact that the majority, from inability to do more, 
made a sign or mark ; and the seals we affix were 



76 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

once the most certain pledges of a genuine subscrip- 
tion. We cannot argue that the king of Persia 
could not write ; but he had adopted the usual prac- 
tice of subscribing public documents by a seal or 
ring. Some of these ancient seals may now be 
found in any important museum ; and engravings 
of them are frequent in modern commentaries. ( See 
page 80.) In Persia yet, documents are authenticated 
by the seal, rather than by a signature. The king 
gave his seal to Haman. He had thus the power to 
give authority to any proclamation ; and this in a 
realm where even Ahasuerus could not repeal the 
most absurd and mischievous decree. Thus far the 
success of Haman seems complete. He has full au- 
thority to issue the irreversible command. 

The decree was prepared and sent forth to the 
governors in the wide empire of Persia, written in 
the king's name and sealed with his seal. The let- 
ters were sent by post. The word comes from the 
Latin positus, placed ; because by placing horses at 
certain stations, messages were carried without de- 
lay and at great speed to any required distance. 
There is an interesting section in Rollin's Ancient 
History where the establishment of the first posts 
and couriers is ascribed to Cyrus, king of Persia. 
That prince appointed postmasters to receive the 
packets, and provide horses ; and the riders went 
night and day without regard to weather. Herodo- 
tus speaks of these posts with admiration in the 
times of Xerxes. But we incline to believe that to the 



77 

Jews is due the credit of this invention. It is very 
certain that no ancient nation exceeded the Jews in 
general intelligence among the people. We have 
no good reason to say that permanent arrangements 
existed among the Jews for transmitting regular in- 
telligence ; but posts are mentioned in the Jewish 
Chronicles in the days of king Hezekiah, a century 
and a half before the reign of Cyrus ; 2 Chron. xxx. 
6 ; and it would be no wonder if Daniel, a Jew and 
the chief minister of Cyrus, transferred a Jewish 
institution to Persian practice, to the great admira- 
tion of Greek historians, and to the great advan- 
tage of the entire world ; for this method of com- 
munication has now expanded into one of the most 
important agencies of modern civilization, the Post 
Office, than which nothing has done more to ful- 
fil Daniel's own prophetic words for these ages, 
"Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be 
increased. " Dan. xii. 4. We are so accustomed 
to the privileges of the Post Office, that we seldom 
reflect on its advantages. Posts in their origin were 
not used for the public benefit, but were designed to 
transmit the despatches of the government. So the 
decree was sent to the governors. Yet as no secrecy 
was designed, its purport was made public. All the 
vile passions of men were let loose against the Jews. 
It was made lawful for any man whom envy or re- 
venge or cupidity might arouse against his Jewish 
neighbour, to destroy his family, and to seize on his 
property. Nor need we think that the very cruelty 



78 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

of the decree would defeat it. The pages of hu- 
man history prove only too fully that the most in- 
human tyrants do not lack willing helpers to execute 
their schemes. It is impossible for us to realize how 
latent iniquity in human hearts is restrained by law 
and custom. The tendency of allowed crime, and 
especially of legalized crime, to increase, even in 
men whose principles might be thought to be better, 
is strong proof that firm restraint should never be re- 
laxed. Philosophers tell us that beneath the crust of 
the earth there are immense magazines of explosive 
and combustible materials, and vast internal fires ; 
and in a favourable opportunity these might easily 
effect the conflagration, and even the destruction 
of the globe. In proof of this, they point to those 
volcanic fires which occasionally give partial vent to 
these energies in the awful .eruption, or the terrific 
earthquake. And so the Scriptures tell us, that the 
heart of man is the seat of evil passions, deceitful 
and desperately wicked ; and in proof we have re- 
cords of human sin, which make us tremble and blush 
that we too are men, and have these hearts of deceit. 
Had the decree of Hainan been carried into effect, 
it would not have lacked executioners, delighting in 
the license of blood and cruelty. 

Yet sympathy, grief, and indignation would not 
be wanting in the minds of the better part of the 
people every where. The Jews had been long scat- 
tered: they were thoughtful, industrious, and moral 
among the heathen ; and like light in darkness, their 



79 

high and holy views of God and of man's duty, must 
have attracted attention in realms of paganism ; and 
they had doubtless formed many ties of friendship 
and good neighbourhood. Thus summarily con- 
demned to confiscation and death, without trial and 
without charge, they became the subjects of a wide- 
spread sympathy. "The city Shushan was per- 
plexed." This was doubtless an example of the 
whole empire. Perhaps many Jews resided there ; 
and being near the court, the reason for the decree 
was better conjectured. Yet if they did know Mor- 
decai's insult to Haman, his revenge must have 
seemed stupendous. 

"And the king and Haman sat down to drink." 
But little sympathy exists here between the prince 
and the people. The true theory of government 
makes all one body ; the ruler the head and the peo- 
ple the members. Here the body is perplexed, and 
the head is indifferent to the sorrows of the mem- 
bers. We do not suppose the words denote any spe- 
cial revelry, as if Ahasuerus or Haman needed to 
drown the thoughts of a wicked transaction in the 
oblivion of intoxication. It simply expresses their 
indifference to the agitation produced by their de- 
cree. As for Ahasuerus, having given the entire 
matter into the hands of Haman, he thought little 
of it ; and the time had not yet come for Haman to 
be troubled. The consciences of guilty men will 
often sleep during the longest progress of villany ; 
but when the iniquity has either finally failed, or is 



80 



ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 



successfully done, conscience rises up in terror 
against the peace of the soul. If sinful men could 
only see their sins as they will one day see them, 
and as even in this life they sometimes see too late, 
they would withhold their hands appalled. Hainan's 
time had not yet come. He was hurrying forward 
to secure his end, unknowing that his own feet should 
fall into the deep pit he had digged. Shushan was 
in perplexity; but the authors of their trouble sat 
down to drink. 




ORIENTAL SIGNET RINGS. 



THE IRREVERSIBLE DECREE. 81 



LECTURE IV. 

THE IRREVERSIBLE DECREE. 

Can we really give credit to tlie historical state- 
ment here made, that so heartless and cruel a 
decree should go forth from any monarch against 
his own subjects — an inoffensive and industrious 
population — as that recorded of king Ahasuerus 
against the Jewish exiles ? Even supposing that 
this historical narrative is verified by far more than 
the usual evidences, which lead us to believe the 
records of the past, may there not be doubt cast 
over the whole transaction, by the very extrava- 
gance of cruelty here attributed to the monarch and 
his adviser ? May we not say, from our knowledge 
of human nature, that the heart of man is not capa- 
ble of deeds so arbitrary and tyrannical ? Or if 
we suppose that such deeds have ever happened, 
how far back in the annals of the world must we 
go ; to what climes and ages of barbarism ; under 
what debasing and sanguinary forms of religion, 
must we look ; and what are the exciting causes 
which provoke such iniquity ? Alas ! the doc- 
trines of the Bible and the gloomy teachings of 



82 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

history — in these pages and out of them — are only 
too much alike, when they give us the darkest 
views of human nature, and point us to a hidden 
source of deep depravity in man himself as the only 
satisfactory solution of earth's scenes of cruelty and 
blood. Early in the history of Adam's fallen race 
have we these impressive teachings, " God saw that 
the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and 
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart 
was only evil continually." Gen. vi. 5. Before 
this God had said to the serpent, " I will put enmity 
between thee and the woman, and between thy 
seed and her seed." Gen. iii. 15. In these two 
verses, we have the key to all the cruelties and 
oppressions of man ; and especially to the remark- 
able fact that the cruelty of man has never been 
more fierce than when it has raged against the 
church of God. We may go far back in history, 
if you please ; and among its first records and in 
its very first mention of blood-shedding we have a 
religious feud, and the innocent and the inoffensive 
falling before the guilty. What a picture is that ! 
The first born of men is the first murderer, the first 
persecutor for religion's sake : the first man to die 
is the first martyr of piety ; and we read no sooner 
of an altar smoking to the God of mercy, than we 
hear a voice of blood, crying out from the new- 
stained earth to the God of justice. And the war 
thus early begun, has never ended : and as it began 
between brother and brother, as the seed of the 



THE IRREVERSIBLE DECREE. 83 

serpent and the seed of the woman sprang from the 
common mother, so no ties between king and sub- 
ject, between friend and friend, are regarded in 
this fatal strife. The brother betrays the brother 
to death ; the father, the son ; the children, the 
parents. Are these strange scenes in human history, 
so that the iniquity of Ahasuerus must be dis- 
credited for want of a parallel ? Look back less 
than two thousand years to that Roman emperor 
whose name has become proverbial for tyranny, who 
wished that all his subjects had but one neck that 
a single stroke might end them all ; whose character 
is portrayed by the current charge, true or false, 
that he set his capital on fire and danced to his own 
trifling music, in the light afforded ; and this man 
may be found enveloping his Christian subjects in 
garments dipped in pitch and setting them on fire 
as miserable torches to illuminate the imperial gar- 
dens. We may descend fifteen hundred years later, 
and landing in the capital of modern, polished, in- 
telligent France, on the morning of August 24th 
1572, we may see a king, instructed in the Romish 
faith, and solemnly called by the authority of the 
Pope, " His Most Christian Majesty," — issue and 
execute a decree for the slaughter of his Protestant 
subjects, that surpasses in atrocity any that can be 
found even in the records of kingly crimes. Let in- 
deed the decree of Ahasuerus be justly considered 
as humane in comparison with this later edict. 
Even Haman was willing to publish his intentions ; 



84 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

nearly a year's notice was given that the Jews might 
escape or resist ; and he was but carrying on a war 
that had existed already without a truce for a 
thousand years. But the decree of the French 
monarch was against his own best subjects ; was in 
defiance of the most solemn promises and treaties 
of friendship ; was carefully concealed by tokens of 
kindness up to the very hour when every preparation 
was made ; and burst upon the defenceless heads of 
the devoted victims like a sudden peal of thunder 
from a cloudless sky. 

The great bell of the palace, used only upon oc- 
casions of public rejoicing, gave the signal in the 
night ; the bells of churches, devoted to the God of 
peace, answered ; and the discharge of fire arms in- 
creased the tokens of alarm. A white cross, worn 
on the hat, distinguished the faithful members of 
the Romish church ; their priests, with a drawn 
sword in one hand and a crucifix in the other, pre- 
ceded the assassins, and urged them on ; and by the 
dawn of day Paris exhibited an appalling spectacle : 
headless bodies were thrown from the windows ; the 
streets were filled with carcases ; and the gateways 
were blocked up with the dying and the dead. The 
miserable king, Charles IX., fired upon the mis- 
erable populace from the windows of his palace, dis- 
figured the lifeless body of one of his bravest and 
most loyal subjects, and uttered his coarse jests 
over the work his hands bad thus done. A poten- 
tate of higher religious claims than the king of 



THE IRREVERSIBLE DECREE. 85 

France, even the Pope of Rome, ordered public 
thanksgivings to be made to Almighty God for the 
massacre of the Huguenots ; struck off a medal to 
commemorate the great event ; (see page 103 ;) and 
caused a painting to be made, representing the scene, 
that hangs to this day upon the walls of the Vatican. 
We might descend within the memory of living men to 
a period when such teachings of Popery had brought 
forth their ripe fruit, and see a nation throwing off 
restraints, and showing that the hearts, not only 
of despots, but of men as men, are " desperately 
wicked.'' The lesson is only too frequently re- 
peated ; and we may not reject this record, because 
it is so unlike man, but the rather strengthen our 
faith in a narrative that is unhappily so true to 
nature. 

The decree of Ahasuerus went forth ; and now 
the unbending Mordecai passes before us with his 
clothes rent, with sackcloth and ashes upon him, 
and uttering a loud and bitter cry. This is no more 
unusual to express the grief of an Oriental, than pe- 
titions or mass-meetings would be among us. No 
one there thinks of remonstrating with the govern- 
ment ; and the loud outcries of aggrieved individ- 
uals excite no special surprise. Can we draw 
back the veil and read the counsels of God ? Can 
we understand why, in the orderings of his Provi- 
dence, such dark clouds are allowed, even for a lit- 
tle while, to rest upon the righteous ; why such 
sorrows rend their hearts ; and why the voice of 



8G ESTHER, AND HER TIMES. 

exultation is heard in the tabernacles of the proud 
and ungodly? Could not the pathway of the 
righteous here, be ever a path of light and comfort — 
of joy and peace ; with no triumphs for Ham an and 
for such as he, and no sackcloth and bitterness for 
the righteous Mordecai ? It is in infinite wisdom, 
even though we may be unable to trace its every 
line, that Jehovah has arranged the plan of this 
world's affairs ; and has placed us here to know the 
trials of ignorance and to feel the pangs of adver- 
sity. The law of his earthly kingdom bids us walk 
by faith and not by sight ; and we must needs feel 
our dependence and be exposed to temptation and 
danger. There is a sense in which the path of the 
just is a path of light. The pathway of duty is sel- 
dom otherwise than clear to those who wish to find 
it ; and faith assures us that this is the path of 
safety and of final comfort. Faith rests upon a basis 
holier and more permanent than our present feel- 
ings of joy or sorrow ; bids us be careful only of 
our obedience to the Divine will ; and gives the as- 
surance that afflictions, meekly endured, shall yield 
the peaceable fruits of righteousness. Hebrews 
xii. 11. 

Nor do we lack reasonable arguments to show, 
that God's glory and man's good are greatly pro- 
moted by our most severe trials of faith and endur- 
ance. Even in the affairs of this life, they are the 
most useful and valuable men, who have struggled 

CO 

hard for eminence ; and have passed through many 



THE IRREVERSIBLE DECREE. 87 

trials in their checkered experience. During the 
periods of temptation indeed, we may be deeply 
dejected, and may fear for the issue ; it is in the 
very nature of trial, that the eye of faith alone 
can see the end of it ; and our faith is not to be 
estimated by the strong fears and weighty griefs, 
with which it is brought into conflict ; but rather 
by its efforts to contend against these, and its final 
triumph over them. During the darkness and 
terror of a storm at sea, the sailor cannot appeal 
to the heavens to learn his present position, and 
the progress he is making ; such observations belong 
to fair weather ; but he can still appeal to his com- 
pass to tell the direction which he would go. 
During our seasons of sorrow and trial, God gives 
us still his word as our compass, and light enough 
to see the path of duty ; he assures us of his con- 
tinued kindness and protection in spite of adverse 
appearances ; but it is only when the storm is past 
that we can learn how far it has sent us upon our 
way; can discern the mercy that sent it; can 
rejoice that trouble brought us large experience of 
his kindness, and love, and grace ; and can sing the 
oft repeated song of the royal psalmist, 

Yet I have found 'tis good for me, 

To bear my Father's rod ; 
Afflictions make me learn thy law, 

And live upon my God. 

When these trials are past, and God's ransomed 



88 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

people are gathered home, his ways of dark provi- 
dence will be vindicated; we shall see what we should 
now believe ; we shall understand fully what we now 
comprehend partially ; the darkest clouds will have 
been found by experience to be full of the largest 
showers of mercy ; and things which we thought 
the worst that could happen, will be found among 
the best. Let us believe these lessons now. Provi- 
dence is often to be judged by contraries ; when 
God is kindest, he may seem severe : or rather 
God is ever to be credited upon the truth of his 
holy word, which we can read ; and not judged by 
the appearances of his providence, which we cannot 
read. And it is unquestionably a design in record- 
ing such troubles, and the slow-moving but certain 
period of deliverance from them, to encourage the 
church and each believer in their trials. For if the 
actual occurrences of human affairs are different in 
each age, in each rolling year, ; and with each in- 
dividual, so that every man has an experience 
peculiarly his own ; still the principles of the Divine 
government remain permanent and unchanging. 
The same covenant-keeping God, who watched over 
Israel and Mordecai, watches in the affairs of his 
meanest servant ; appoints his angels to minister 
about their path ; and notices the struggles, and 
rewards the triumphs of their faith. These things 
are written for our learning ; these trials and temp- 
tations beneath which we now weep and mourn, are 
in His full view, who wisely orders their occurrence; 



THE IRREVERSIBLE DECREE. 89 

their end is present before him, and a train of 
means is laid in infinite wisdom to secure its happy- 
accomplishment. Let worldly men be skeptical, 
if they will, of these kind orderings in the provi- 
dence of God ; rebels against his law, let them 
fight, like Haman, against his mercy to Israel ; 
blind to their own duty, no marvel, if they are ig- 
norant of his power and grace ; but their folly and 
madness may not rob God's believing people of 
their delightful privilege. We may still trust his 
minute and constant guardianship. The book of 
Esther teaches the same essential lesson which 
Christ taught his disciples, " the very hairs of your 
head are all numbered/ ' Matt. x. 30. The lessons 
of these pages are lessons of confidence in the 
darkest hours of trial ; lessons of rejoicing in tribu- 
lation from the prospect, not only of deliverance, 
but also of enlargement ; lessons of peace in 'hours 
of grief. Here, long before the days of Paul the 
apostle, may we learn Paul's great lesson, " We 
know that all things work together for good, to 
them that love God, to them that are the called ac- 
cording to his purpose !" Kom. viii. 28. 

" Let us be patient ! These severe afflictions 
Not from the ground arise ; 
But oftentimes celestial benedictions 

Assume this dark disguise ; 
We see but dimly through the- mists and vapours ; 

Amid these earthly damps, 
What seem to us but dim, funereal tapers, 

May be heaven's distant lamps !" 
8* 



90 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

But what judgment are we to form now of Mor- 
decai, when he thus clothes himself in sackcloth, 
and bewails so bitterly the stern decree ? Has his 
confidence now failed in the covenant promise to 
God's chosen people ? Does he begin to regret his 
ill-timed boldness, in thus provoking the enemy of 
his faith and of his race ? Is he willing now to bow 
down, with obsequious reverence, at the feet of the 
haughty Agagite ? Not one of these things is true, 
as we shall further see in the narrative. And yet 
Mordecai is in trouble. And to reconcile his la- 
mentations in such a case, with the genuineness and 
even with the firmness of his faith in God, affords 
us one of the most important practical lessons of 
the life of piety ; a lesson we are very slow to learn, 
and yet one we need quite as much as any other, in 
all the teachings of the Bible ; a lesson that comes 
home to the conflicts and fluctuations of our own 
breasts, and bids us look forward to the day of 
triumph. There is no foundation in the word of 
God for the idea, that faith destroys our humanity, 
that it steels the heart against all fears, and quells 
the risings of all timidity. True piety is as far re- 
moved from stoical apathy on the one hand, as it is 
from quailing despondency upon the other. The 
faith of a pious mind exists in a mind that still re- 
mains human ; that has yet the misgivings and ig- 
norance, the fears and tremblings incident to man's 
experience; and when these fears and difficulties 
abound the most, the strength of faith is seen — not 



THE IRREVERSIBLE DECREE. 91 

so much in our banishing them from the mind — as 
in our triumph over them. That is a strong faith, 
which sees difficulties, weighs them, and fears them ; 
but refuses to be deterred by them from the path of 
duty. 

Mordecai was troubled at the decree. This was 
not wrong, but perfectly natural. God designs 
that we should feel our adversities, should mourn 
at the frowns of his providence, and then roll our 
care upon him. Nor must we forget an important 
matter, which entered as an essential element into 
Mordecai's humiliation. He mourned for the ca- 
lamities threatening his people. If personal differ- 
ences only had existed between himself and the Aga- 
gite, it may be, Mordecai would have acted other- 
wise. Or had the haughty foe of his faith singled 
him out as a Jew, the solitary object of his hatred, 
he would perhaps have gone even to death with the 
spirit and bearing of a martyr, scorning the hered- 
itary foe, and rejoicing to die for his faith; and no 
cry of bitterness would have wailed through the 
streets of Shushan ; no pang of regret would have 
rent the heart of Mordecai, as he passed to join the 
noble army of witnesses, who have sealed with their 
blood the testimony of God. But the nation of Morde- 
cai was involved in the revenge of Haman ; and how- 
ever firm was the faith of this heroic man in the fi- 
nal issue of Israel's triumph, it was impossible for 
him to foresee at how great a cost to his people this 
new conflict might be. It was no light thing to 



92 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

Mordecai, that upon him lay the responsibility of 
provoking the conflict ; and though well assured of 
the rectitude of his principles and the sincerity of 
his motives, he could not repress some anxious so- 
licitude for the measures he had taken ; some earn- 
est searchings of heart to see whether he might 
not have fulfilled his entire duty to God without in- 
volving Israel in trouble like this. Times of severe 
trials lead us to search our motives; and even w T hen 
we judge that we have done as we ought — that if 
things were again to do, we would pursue the same 
course ; we may yet see reason to mourn the calami- 
ties our faithfulness may have brought upon others. 

The first tidings of the decree greatly distressed 
Mordecai. Regardless of appearances, he ran 
through the streets in wild excitement, bewailing 
even to the gates of the palace, the calamity of his 
people. But he does not spend all his strength in 
vain lamentations. Strong emotions cannot last 
long ; and it is well they cannot. Mordecai is as 
deeply grieved afterwards, but his mind becomes 
more composed; he carefully considers how the 
threatening storm may be averted; and he earnestly 
sets to work to carry his plan into execution. That 
grief which unfits us for duty is inordinate and un- 
submissive; while true submission is entirely consist- 
ent with the use of measures to secure consolation, 
when our trials are beyond remedy ; and to secure 
relief from evils, which may be averted. 

What arc we to say of that sentence upon this 



THE IRREVERSIBLE DECREE. 93 

truthful page, " None might enter into the king's gate 
clothed with sackcloth?" The halls of Ahasuerus 
were set apart for gayety and mirth ; the grotesque 
robe of the buffoon, or the embroidered cloak that 
covered the painted hypocrite, might freely enter 
there ; but the coarse, rough clothing that betokened 
distress and sorrow, was debarred entrance to the 
palace of the king. Was this too an unalterable 
decree in the wise realm of Persia ? Are edicts 
fraught with distress unutterable, ever to go forth 
from those marble chambers, and yet the ponderous 
gates be never thrown open, that sorrow, or the tid- 
ings of sorrow, from a stricken nation or a sinful 
race, may perchance reach the ear of the king? 
And can we imagine^ it possible, that in that abode 
of splendid tyranny, no sighs were ever heaved, no 
tears ever fell ? When the tidings of Vashti's dis- 
grace fell heavily upon the ear of the beautiful 
queen, did no thoughts befitting the sackcloth cross 
her heart ? Amid the cruel desolation of so many 
fair damsels, torn from the abodes of parental ten- 
derness to pine in the harem of the Persian king, 
were there neither visible griefs, nor secret lamenta- 
tions ? Had the mighty king forbidden his porters 
to open up at the knock of that impartial messen- 
ger, whose dark shadow falls alike upon the thresh- 
old of the palace and of the cottage ? If one 
Persian king was angry that the waves of the sea 
would not do his bidding ; shall another frown that 
death will not stay at his command ? Had Ahasue- 



94 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

rus forgotten the only wise thing that history has 
recorded of his father ; the memorable weeping of 
Xerxes at the rapid and resistless march of inexora- 
ble death ? 

Yet we need not wonder at the foolish mandate- 
Sackcloth may not enter the palace of the king. It 
would indeed have been wiser far, if the voice of 
sorrow had often been welcomed there ; if sackcloth 
and mourning had been freely invited guests ; if the 
voice of revelry had given place to an appointed 
messenger ever sounding, in the monarch's ears, the 
fact of his mortality ; if instead of increasing his 
people's sorrows, he had been ever ready to hear 
them, to sympathize with them and to relieve them ; 
and if salutary thoughts of death had prepared 
Ahasuerus himself to die. But we are not surprised 
at these words of folly in the Persian court, for the 
spirit that dictated such an order, is still existing 
where it finds no direct utterance in such words of 
folly. Is it not true, that in the halls of modern 
gayety, in the circles of fashion, in the abodes of 
luxury, and in parties of vain pleasure, these thoughts 
of sorrow and mortality are yet guests as unwelcome 
as the sackcloth garment in the Persian palace ? 
Do not men now banish all thoughts of grief and 
death, and all preparation for that most certain and 
most important event ? How many of us love to 
think of that solemn hour, and have made an intelli- 
gent preparation for it ? And why should we not ? 
Do thoughts of sorrow have any tendency to bring 



THE IRREVERSIBLE DECREE. 95 

sorrow upon us ? When we allow our minds to re- 
flect upon death, can such reflections have any ten- 
dency to hasten the footsteps of the final messen- 
ger, that he may knock the more speedily at our 
door ? Certainly this is not so. 

"When the commander of a fortress about to be be- 
sieged takes his glass, and examines the number and 
power of the approaching enemy, it is only appar- 
ently and not really, that the danger is brought 
nearer. He is better able by means of his telescope 
to discern the peril ; to understand how great it is ; 
to prepare to meet it, and perhaps to overcome it ; 
but certainly his clear vision neither hastens the hour 
of danger, nor increases the danger itself. It is 
purely an advantage. So, thoughtful contemplation, 
through the glass of God's holy word, of grief and 
death, may give us better ideas of sorrow, and pre- 
pare us to meet it when it comes ; but it can have 
no effect to increase the power of our troubles over 
us, nor to hurry forward the visits they make to 
our abodes. 

The true reasons for the decree of Ahasuerus, and 
for the banishment of serious thoughts from human 
minds, are the aversion of man's heart to good; the 
power of conscience that dares not think of death ; 
and the love of those frivolous and often guilty plea- 
sures, that are so easily marred by the sounds of 
sorrow. Before we curl the lip in scorn at this new 
token of Persian folly, let us examine whether we 
ourselves are truly wise on this point. We are in a 



90 ESTHER AND PIER TIMES. 

world of sorrow; let us learn to sympathize with it; 
to bear it ourselves ; to draw precious advantages 
from it. We are in a world where death reigns ; 
and we are certain, he will one day enter our abodes, 
and strike at our hearts. Let us be mindful of this 
mortality. Especially let us make Him our friend, 
who is death's conqueror, and who gives us a tri- 
umph over the grave. 

Yet men will go on in this way of folly, still virtu- 
ally writing over the doors of their theatres, and their 
ball-rooms, and their parlours and their closets, "Let 
no one enter here clothed in sackcloth.'' Vain and 
impotent decree ! If they would shut out sin the cause 
of sorrow, and the inventor of the garments of mortal 
grief, it would be something ; but they welcome the 
cause and wish not the effect ; they plant the seed, 
and wish the tree to be fruitless. But it may not 
be. Ahasuerus may close his palace gates, and 
doubly guard them with his most careful officers, but 
sorrow will enter there in despite of the bars, and 
steal silently by his most vigilant porters; death, 
with leaden noiseless step, will tread his tesselated 
pavements, and shoot his fatal arrows through the 
costly tapestry; and the page and the peer, the min- 
ister and the monarch, unconscious of surrounding 
splendour or meanness, must be clothed in the gar- 
ments of the grave. Men may put away from them 
the thoughts of affliction, but they will come. They 
may fear sorrow itself, but it will come. They may 
shrink from the approach of death, but it will come. 



THE IRREVERSIBLE DECREE. 97 

They may loathe the silent grave, but there they 
must come. They may dread the resurrection, but 
it too will come. They may tremble as they think 
of judgment, but 

" That awful day will surely come." 

They may be unprepared for the retributions of 
eternity, but they will come — -come all the more ter- 
ribly, because they are unwelcome : and when they 
come, they will endure for ever ! 

"None might enter the king's gate clothed in 
sackcloth." Ahasuerus was a great monarch ; kings 
bowed down to do him reverence ; millions of sub- 
jects obeyed his decrees ; and many a heart was 
bowed in sadness through his wide dominions. But 
how unhappy was that rule, which in a world of 
grief and sadness seemed so to forbid all sympathy 
between the ruler and the ruled ! Who would wish 
to be governed by a monarch whose character is re- 
vealed by such a word as this ? It is our privilege 
to dwell beneath the beneficent sceptre of One, 
whose decree is all the reverse of this. We dwell 
in the land of a mighty monarch. Our sovereign 
is the King of kings. On his head are many crowns. 
All power is given to him in heaven and upon 
earth ; and this power he uses freely to bless the 
sorrowing, and the voice of grief is ever welcome in 
his ears. When he dwelt among men in the gar- 
ments of our humanity, his daily walks were among 
the children of sorrow ; disease and suffering found 



98 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

relief in his healing smile ; and he wept with those 
that were in mourning. The palace on earth where 
our King has established his throne and dispenses 
his favours, is the sanctuary of the broken hearted ; 
and no more fitting words could be written upon its 
portals than his own delightful utterance, " Come 
unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and 
I will give you rest." Matt. xi. 28. Around his 
throne of grace, now for more than sixty centuries, 
have bowed the sackcloth garments of a stricken 
world : here the tears of penitence have been freely 
poured out ; here the sighs of the broken hearted 
have been freely vented. And welcome now are 
all the sons and daughters of sorrow. He has as- 
cended up on high ; but not to forget that cardinal 
principle of his kingdom. He has yet a sympathy 
with us in all we feel ; for he once was in all points 
tempted like as we are. Heb. iv. 15 ; v. 7. He 
once poured out his supplications with strong cry- 
ing and tears. Well may we rejoice in the gracious 
invitations of such a King. Many of us have 
poured our sorrows at his feet ; and found that he 
alone can give true relief. We invite our suffering 
brethren to come also to him. Come sinful soul ! 
Hear his gracious voice. He calls you, rather than 
rejects you. Are your sins a burden? Do j r ou 
tremble in view of the coming judgment ? lias 
earth no solace for a troubled spirit ? The sanctu- 
ary is a refuge from trouble. Our king welcomes 



THE IRREVERSIBLE DECREE. 99 

the humbled sinner. None ever trusted in him 
and were confounded. 

Let us not repress the further reflection that 
there is a palace of this glorious King upon whose 
gates is written, in truth and not in mockery ; by 
the hand of authority and not of impotent pre- 
sumption, "None may enter here clothed in sack- 
cloth." 

Blessed are all they that do enter in through the 
gates into that city, where "God shall wipe away 
all tears from their eyes ; and there shall be no 
more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall 
there be any more pain." Rev. xxi. 4. But is it 
not worthy of remark, that those who most ear- 
nestly hope and prepare for an abode in that glo- 
rious palace of our immortal King, are such as here 
make themselves most familiar with thoughts of 
death ? It is not true that wise thoughts . of our 
mortality are as wormwood cast into the sweet 
fountain of our earthly pleasures to make it bitter. 
It is a tradition among the Jews, that Moses healed 
Marah, the fountain of bitter waters in the wilder- 
ness, by casting into it a bitter tree. Exod. xv. 
23 — 25. The idea finds its fulfilment here. Earthly 
engagements are themselves unsatisfactory — a bit- 
ter fountain, yielding streams of gall and worm- 
wood. Cast into this Marah in our wilderness, 
those thoughts of salutary affliction, which are as 
wormwood to the natural mind ; and the pure, 
sweet waters of consolation and of pious peace 



100 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

flow forth. It is wisdom in us to welcome sorrow 
and the thoughts of it ; for certain it is, that there 
are no happier hearts on earth than those that are 
often filled with thoughts of sorrow and dying ; and 
have perhaps the very oftenest been brought into 
fellowship with these things. 

The grief of Mordecai was quickly communi- 
cated to Esther ; and she sent a message to take 
away his sackcloth ; and when he received not this, 
to know the cause of his distress. In return Mor- 
decai sent to the queen a copy of the proclamation, 
which had been issued at the instigation of Haman 
against the Jewish people. And here enters the 
first ray of light touching the designs of God's pro- 
vidence in introducing a Jewish maiden to royalty 
in that empire. The movements of Divine wisdom 
are slow and deliberate ; there is no danger that 
some unforeseen contingency can thwart his plans. 
Esther had now been queen more than four years ; 
and eight years and a half have elapsed since the 
divorce of Vashti ; and as yet no apparent advan- 
tage has occurred, not even to Mordecai, the 
orphan's friend and protector. But his faith be- 
gins now to discern how God designs to use her for 
the preservation of his people. His grief operates 
not to prevent the wise consideration of duty ; nor 
his faith to supersede the careful use of means. 
He sent word to Esther that she should lay the 
matter before her royal husband ; and make suppli- 
cation for the safety of her race. 



THE IRREVERSIBLE DECREE. 101 

# 

We have no record of the immediate effect of these 
calamitous tidings upon the queen; but we know 
that she was distressed for the afflictions of Jacob ; 
and though labouring under some disadvantages, 
best understood by herself, she was ready to use all 
the means in her power to bring relief. In reply to 
Mordecai she reminded him that there was a law in 
the palace, forbidding any person to approach the 
king unless called so to do. This law shows us the 
great distance in eastern lands, between the mon- 
arch and his subjects. It was perhaps ostensibly 
enacted to prevent the attacks of assassins whom 
despotic princes ever need to fear, and to keep up 
the state of the king ; but certainly it seemed to 
make the king the mere tool of artful officers through 
whom communications would be kept up with the 
empire, and who, save as their jealousies would lead 
them to keep each other in check, would give or 
withhold intelligence as they pleased. The single 
exception to the law lay in the will of the king ; and 
he might at his pleasure hold out his golden sceptre, 
in token of favour, to even an unbidden visitor. 
But for some reason, unknown to herself, the beau- 
tiful queen had not seen the face of her royal con- 
sort for an entire month ; and perhaps her mind was 
ready for all manner of conjectures as to the cause. 
Four years in the palace may have shown her the 
king's weakness and fickleness ; and perhaps have 
awakened the fear that he would be as ready to di- 
vorce her, as Vashti. When she heard of this de- 



102 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

» 

cree against her people, and put that beside her long 
exclusion from seeing his face, the fear would cer- 
tainly not be unnatural that the king designed to 
exclude her ; and that his estrangement had clearly 
kept him from her apartments for a month. It is 
natural in times of distress and perplexity to allow 
our minds to dwell upon the dark side of every mat- 
ter ; and it was no doubt with many misgivings that 
Esther pondered the plan which her respected cousin 
urged upon her. 

But his arguments and her resolution will engage 
our thoughts at another time. We now conclude 
with a single reflection. 

We are called upon earth to a life of faith. We 
need not expect to pass our time here without sor- 
row ; nor think that God's providence will always 
smile. Let us not expect to engage in any duties 
of great importance without being perplexed by dif- 
ficulties ; nor should we even wish that our path 
should be different from the usual path in which God 
leads his people. We shall be happiest when we 
walk in the footsteps of the flock. 

Let us make up our minds to acquaint ourselves in 
the teachings of his word, with what we have to do ; 
and earnestly to do it, in spite of perplexing anxie- 
ties and opposing difficulties. Duties are ours ; events 
are God's. The path of devotion and duty is the 
path of safety. We should not be envious of the 
peace of ungodly men, or of their apparently su- 
perior security. Whatever darkness may surround 



THE IRREVERSIBLE DECREE. 



103 



the dealings of God with our souls, the principles he 
has given to guide us, are plain enough. His law 
is our rule of life, — his gospel, the only hope of the 
guilty. 

Let every believer walk humbly before Him and 
trust the orderings of his wisdom. 

Let those who are unreconciled to God, and who 
rank among his foes, fight no longer in madness 
against his throne. Let them repent of their evil 
ways ; flee to the foot of Calvary and sue for 
mercy. We shall see, as we proceed in this history, 
that the sinner's prosperity but goes before his de- 
struction ; and that it is vain to fight gainst God. 
Let it be your wisdom, impenitent man, to submit 
ere it be too late to gain the advantage of it ; and 
find your happiness and your eternal life through 
that grace, which is freely offered in the name of 
the dying Son of God ! 




MEDAL OF THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S. 



104 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 



LECTURE V. 

DIVINE DESIGNS AND HUMAN DUTY. 

Trouble has entered the marble halls of Ahas- 
uerus, if even sackcloth, its outward symbol, is 
shut out by law. The decree, which Mordecai 
sent to the queen, threw her into great perplexity. 
On the one hand, she was deeply grieved for the 
calamity that had befallen her unhappy people ; 
and on the other, she seemed suddenly deprived of 
the power to afford them the slightest relief. The 
apparent estrangement of her royal husband oc- 
curred just at a juncture to fill her with the deepest 
anxiety. Perhaps his absence from her apartments 
for thirty days, was the result of design; perhaps 
it was a proof that her kindred, hitherto concealed, 
was discovered, and that she was intentionally and 
by name included in the plot of the wicked Ha- 
inan. We cannot wonder at Esthers perplexity. 
It is just such perplexity as w T e ourselves would 
feel in such a case ; and as nothing more arouses 
the mind to active energy than circumstances of 
peril, we would have imagined and feared as she 
did. In studying the pages of sacred or profane 



DIVINE DESIGNS AND HUMAN DUTY. 105 

history, we must take an interest in them as the 
records of human life. Upon no historian can 
we place so entire reliance as upon these sacred 
writers ; yet must we interpret what they record, 
with the remembrance that the actors in these 
scenes were not inspired, though the historians 
are. The influence of inspiration is, not to lift the 
actors here above the level of our humanity, but 
simply to give a truthful representation of what 
they were, of how they felt, of what they did. 
And it is just because we have here an exact tran- 
script of human feelings in the trials of human life, 
that these records are valuable for our instruction ; 
and it is only when we judge of them through the 
medium of our own feelings, that we form a just 
estimate of the different characters, and see the 
wonders of God's providence in governing the free 
actions of intelligent minds. 

But the lessons of wisdom upon these inspired 
pages are expressed only in principle ; and we think 
it our place to consider these attentively, and more 
at large than we find them here. Hence we do 
not hesitate to arrest our progress through the nar- 
rative, as occasion offers for profitable thoughts. 
If the traveller, hurrying forward in his journey, 
may not stop to pick up every stone that glitters in 
his path ; yet he can well afford to stay long enough 
to pick up a valuable diamond. 

Stopping the course of the narrative for the pre- 
sent, let us consider the argument preferred by 



106 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

Mordecai, when he would urge Esther to go in and 
ask the king for the life of her people. 

Esther reminded Mordecai of a well known law 
in Persia, that if any one came in to the king 
uncalled, his presumption w T as fatal to himself, unless 
it pleased the king to hold out his golden sceptre. 
That such a rod or sceptre of gold was used by the 
kings of Persia is mentioned by Xenophon. While 
these profane w y riters add no authority to the Bi- 
ble, it is a matter of interest to notice instances 
where they agree with the statements of inspiration ; 
and there will, we believe, be much corroborative 
proof of the correctness of the Scriptural writers 
in the interesting investigations of antiquaries among 
the ruins of Oriental empires. The first fruits give 
promise of a large harvest. As Esther had not 
been called to go in, she naturally feared that her 
intercession would be fatal to herself. Yet the 
urgency of the case causes Mordecai to press the 
matter upon her as an imperative duty. 

Now T notice here, in the first place, that Morde- 
cai does not attempt to lessen the real difficulties 
before Esther. He appreciates her position. He 
saw that she had reason to feel and fear just as she 
did. He doubtless entertained some of the same 
anxieties ; and his tenderness for her, as well as the 
dictates of an enlightened judgment, would have 
avoided all possible difficulties, and have spared 
her any unnecessary trial. When we set our- 
selves to perform any duty, it is no mark of 



DIVINE DESIGNS AND HUMAN DUTY. 107 

wisdom to encounter difficulties, which may as well 
be avoided ; nor yet to undervalue the obstacles 
which we must surmount. This is true in every 
case of duty ; true no less in the greatest duty to 
which we are called. Let the man who would fol- 
low Christ, in obedience to Christ's own command, 
set himself down and count the cost. We may not 
abate any of the difficulties in the way ; nor entice 
men to follow Him by false representations of the 
ease and enjoyment ihej may expect. Nothing is 
more remarkable in the teachings of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, than his explicit declarations that self-denials 
must be expected ; and his plain forewarnings that 
in following him, men must take up the cross. No 
false inducements does he hold out : no compromise 
of doctrines to be believed, or of duties to be done, 
does he offer, to win the service of the most influen- 
tial man. Nothing is really gained by undervaluing 
the obstacles which lie in the path of duty. Mor- 
decai saw the strength of the arguments urged by 
Esther ; and he neither denied them, nor sought to 
turn their force aside. 

But Mordecai takes too wise a view of the case, 
and is too deeply interested, to allow these diffi- 
culties to deter him from urging Esther further. 
He recognizes these as difficulties truly ; but there 
are yet greater difficulties and dangers which beset 
her inactivity in this vital matter. The duty of 
Esther, like almost all the serious and important 
duties of life ; like, we may especially say, the 



108 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

great duty of the sinner to flee for salvation to the 
cross of Christ, was a duty, where responsibility 
and difficulty beset her, whichever way she turned, 
whether she acted or refused to act. If the soul 
of an anxious man, troubled and burdened by sin, 
is afraid to flee to Christ for everlasting life, lest he 
should be rejected in his earnest suit, such a man 
in all wisdom should carefully ponder, whether he 
should not be even more afraid to stand back from 
an humble application for His grace, in whom 
alone are hopes of life and salvation. It is some 
such plea as this that Mordecai urges w T ith the 
queen of Persia. 

Admitting the difficulties which seemed to prevent 
her efforts to avert the threatened evil, he warns her, 
in the second place, against entertaining any hopes 
of her personal safety, if she declines the earnest 
effort of duty on behalf of her kindred. It is no 
uncommon thing that the mind of man is swayed at 
the same time, almost equally, by flattering hopes 
and desponding fears. Esther had apparently good 
reasons for flattering herself that she might escape, 
in the execution of the edict against her people. 
Her Jewish descent was not known ; her abode was 
in the palace where no hostile foot dared to intrude ; 
she was queen of the realm ; she was beloved of her 
husband. True, she did feel anxious, lest there 
were some secret workings against even her life ; 
but if there were any such, her fate amis certain and 
only so much the earlier, if she ventured to enter 



DIVINE DESIGNS AND HUMAN DUTY. 109 

unbidden the presence of the king. While Esther 
pondered the matter, nature would bid her shrink 
from the serious responsibility thus urged upon her. 
But the faithful words of Mordecai warn her of the 
deceitfulness of sin ; and remind her that the path 
of duty and the path of safety ever lie together. 
" Think not that thou shalt escape in the king's 
house more than all the Jews." The sleepless enmity 
of Haman ; or the jealous envy of less favoured 
inmates of the palace ; or the frown of that God to 
whose people she was faithless ; or the alarms of an 
unquiet conscience, would betray the recreant queen, 
if in 'this important crisis she consulted her fears, 
selfishly looked only to her own safety, and flattered 
herself with hope of exemption in the general de- 
struction of her race. 

But we may thirdly notice, that Mordecai urges 
upon her attention a motive, which faith alone could 
conceive ; and which a pious mind alone would be 
fully prepared to appreciate. Looking calmly at 
the promises of God respecting his covenant people, 
the earnest Jew is firmly persuaded that this dark 
and threatening storm shall never break for the de- 
struction of Israel. He possesses a calm confidence 
that the God of Abraham will not allow the enemy 
to triumph ; he has read upon the prophetic scroll 
the Divine assurance to Zion, "No weapon formed 
against thee shall prosper;" Isaiah liv. 17; and he 
has hymned the psalmist's praises, " My covenant 
will I not break." Ps. lxxxix. 34. Resting his firm 
10 



110 ESTHER AND HUE TIME?. 

faith on the sure foundation of Jehovah's faithful- 
ness, he believes that here is presented to Esther a 
favourable opportunity to forward the designs of 
Providence ; and that her timely elevation to such a 
post of honour and influence, had marked her as the 
person by whom should be effected a glorious deliv- 
erance. These important thoughts he presses upon 
the attention of the queen. Yet what power of faith 
is here ! We can hardly think that this man, whose 
faith penetrates through the thick darkness now 
around his people, is the same Mordecai, who lately 
ran like a madman through the streets of the city, 
clothed in sackcloth, and bewailing the cruel edict. 
See the difference between impulse and principle ; 
and learn that if strong feelings sometimes sway 
the believer, yet his principles will soon assume their 
wonted control, and a calm and steadfast faith will 
subdue the wildest storms of grief. 

These words of Mordecai are so striking in them- 
selves and they embody lessons so valuable for the 
instruction of subsequent ages, that we regard it 
our duty to analyse their wisdom, and to present 
more plainly the important principles which his ar- 
gument to Esther involves. 

1st, The language of Mordecai expresses his firm 
conviction that this calamity shall yet be averted 
from the Jewish people. So he says, "Enlarge- 
ment and deliverance shall arise." God had 
promised the well being of Israel ; and it was im- 
possible, to the mind of a believer, that his word 



DIVINE DESIGNS AND HUMAN DUTY. Ill 

should fail. And this is a faith which God's hum- 
ble servants may yet exercise in reference to the 
stability and deliverances of Zion in troublous times. 
"God is in the midst of her; she shall not be 
moved." Ps. xlvi. 4. His promises are precious, 
and they are sure ; none of them have ever been 
forgotten, nor is it possible they ever shall be. But 
his promises regard not only the stability of the 
church; he pledges as well her enlargement. Look 
abroad over the destitutions of the heathen world ; 
and while you mourn that the dark places of the 
earth are full of the habitations of cruelty, while 
you deplore the apathy of Christians to obey their 
Lord's ascending command, forget not that certain 
promise of enlargement and deliverance, "I will 
give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the 
uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." Ps. 
ii. 8. Through all the difficulties that seem to be- 
set Zion; beyond the sleep upon the treacherous 
lap of the indulgent world that has shorn her of 
her Nazarite strength ; through the dust and clouds 
and strife of many a stern conflict ; let our faith re- 
gard the fulfilment of his promises, and exclaim 
with Mordecai, Enlargement and deliverance shall 
arise ! Happy are they who identify themselves and 
their interests most intimately with the church 
of God ; for in every conflict the final victory must, 
remain with her. And happy they who cast their 
souls on the gracious assurances of Zion's King. 
The voice that calls, " Come unto me all ye that la- 



112 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

bour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest ;" 
Matt. xi. 28; the voice that says, "Him that Com- 
eth unto me I will in no wise cast out," John vii. 37, 
is a voice we may trust. Every word shall find its 
fulfilment. It may be through troubles and dark- 
ness, through fear and perplexity ; but enlargement 
and deliverance in due time shall come ; and they 
that are faithful in Zion shall share in Zion's glory. 

2. The language of Mordecai teaches us, that 
whatever designs God has formed for the benefit of 
his people, and whatever promises he has given for 
our confidence, are to find their fulfilment in the use 
of proper means, and to be secured through the 
energy of appropriate agents. 

Objections are very commonly made among men 
against the eternal purposes of God, and against 
his efficient providence, that the belief of these 
grand truths leaves nothing for man to do, and 
interferes even with his voluntary agency. Yet it 
is well for us to notice that the scriptural writers, 
who most bring into view the sovereignty of God 
in purpose and act, recognize no inference flowing 
from this, to hinder their earnest exhortations to 
human duty. These objections have never influ- 
enced those true servants of God, who may be 
thought best acquainted with the true influences 
of these Divine teachings ; and indeed they have 
not the slightest foundation of truth, in a just un- 
derstanding of God's purposes and dealings with 
the sons of men. Mordecai firmly expects that 



DIVINE DESIGNS AND HUMAN DUTY. 113 

God will protect his people ; but this faith is far 
from interfering with either his anxieties, or his ef- 
forts to secure this great result. He knows this 
thing will certainly come ; but he does not stand by 
and fold his arms awaiting the movements of Provi- 
dence, like the rolling forward of the wheel of fate ; 
and even when he contemplates the possibility, that 
the rescue may come neither by his hand nor by 
that of Esther, yet he looks not for it as by the 
shifting of some theatrical scene, the waving of a 
fairy wand, or the workings of a magical charm. 
He looks for the desired result through Esther, 
or from some quarter where man shall work for 
God. The romantic vagaries of man's wild imagi- 
nation are far different ; — often they are far less 
wonderful, than the actual working of Divine pro- 
vidence ; and the inspired instructions of God's 
word always teach human duty. The faith of 
Mordecai embraces the promises of God; but he 
is not forgetful of the duties which God's law com- 
mands, and God's providence indicates. He urges 
the queen to an earnest effort, that the certain de- 
liverance may come through her means. If indeed 
Esther holds her peace, Providence will not lack an 
agent for the Lord's designs. Mordecai here plainly 
implies, that the providence of God in this world's 
government is a power that operates efficiently, not 
without the agency of second causes, nor in defi- 
ance of them, but by means of them ; and that 

this truth we must hold in that just balance, which 
10* 



114 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

forbids us to neglect God, or to forget his suprem- 
acy and efficiency on the one hand ; and which on 
the other hand, equally forbids that we should 
overlook our own interests and duties, and those 
connected instrumentalities by which he works. We 
totally misapprehend the teachings of the Bible, 
when we suppose that man's duty is lessened by the 
purposes of God. His purposes and promises do 
rather establish and encourage our duty ; and as 
we shall further see, in considering these words of 
Mordecai to Esther, they deter us, by the most se- 
rious considerations from all unfaithfulness. 

Take even the doctrine of election, as set forth 
in the Scriptures, and base it, as you should, upon 
the sovereign purpose of God. The common con- 
ception of this doctrine is as much a deformed cari- 
cature of the truth, as the supposed influences of it 
are a perversion of its real influences. Instead of 
encouraging men in indolence and neglect of duty, 
this doctrine animates, and commands, and encour- 
ages their earnest efforts. God can indeed accom- 
plish his purposes, without man's help and in defi- 
ance of man's opposition. But he chooses to work 
otherwise ; and it is a great matter for us to notice 
that in fact he does set men to work, and does 
accomplish his ends through that which man may 
do. This book of Esther is a remarkable ex- 
emplification of God's purposes effected without a 
miracle, and through the agency of men. So he is 
working around us ; so he ever works ; so he works 



DIVINE DESIGNS AND HUMAN DUTY. 115 

in the salvation of souls. God saves the souls of 
elect men through conversion, and not in neglect 
or defiance of his own converting grace. For man 
to use the threadbare cavilling, " If I am to be 
saved, I will be saved, let me do as I will;" is as 
great an absurdity as to say, "If I am to be shot, 
I will be shot, whether the bullet predestined to kill 
me, hits or misses." Rather, if I am to be shot, it 
is just as certain, the bullet must hit me. If God 
designs the salvation of any soul, he equally and 
thereby designs that that soul shall repent of sin, 
and renounce it; and shall believe in the Lord 
Jesus Christ unto salvation. Whenever a man can 
be killed without dying, or live without life, then 
may one be saved without conversion ; and not till 
then. When Mordecai, though assured of Israeli 
deliverance, yet urges Esther to exert herself to se- 
cure that result, he teaches a lesson to every sinful 
man touching the great method of securing his sal- 
vation. The means of reaching any end in the 
purposes of God, are equally purposed with the end 
itself. Let the sinner forsake his evil ways, and 
turn to the Lord, for without such a duty dis- 
charged on his part, he cannot secure salvation ; 
and let him be encouraged in the duty, because its 
true discharge is, in the purposes and promises of 
God, the invariable precedent of eternal life secured. 
Let the guilty soul flee to Jesus, for there only is 
salvation ; and none ever trusted in him and were 
confounded. The certainty that God's purposes 



116 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

and promises shall be fulfilled, is the largest encour- 
agement of man's efforts to do God's will, and of 
man's hope to secure God's blessing. Mordecai 
looks for deliverance through an appropriate in- 
strumentality. 

3d. But there is a third important principle set 
forth for our instruction in these words of Morde- 
cai, " Who knoweth whether thou art come to the 
kingdom for such a time as this ?" The words seem 
to refer to the nice adjustment in the providence of 
God of our opportunities and our agencies. There 
is generally indeed a greater or less obscurity in our 
efforts to apply the principles of our duty to the 
providential changes which are constantly occurring 
around us. There is therefore a peradventure in 
the exhortation of Mordecai ; and we ever need to 
feel our dependence upon divine guidance and sup- 
port. "Who knoweth?" is the position we must 
ever hold ; and thus faith may have its fears. But 
faith must also have its hopes and its ventures. 
Mordecai here teaches us, that a providential oppor- 
tunity for doing or receiving good should be regard- 
ed by us as a providential call ; and we should hum- 
bly and firmly go forward, that our obedience to the 
beckonings of Providence may be the connecting 
link in the chain of occurrences which is to secure 
His purposes. The post occupied by Esther was not 
one of her seeking ; the orderings of God's provi- 
dence had placed her in that palace. Beyond the 
foresight of all who had brought about this cleva- 



DIVINE DESIGNS AND HUMAN DUTY. 117 

tion, a critical juncture had now occurred in the his- 
tory of her people ; and the very afforded opportu- 
nity of bringing relief to God's people, seemed to 
single her out as the proper actor in the case ; and 
might justly encourage the belief that God designed 
through her to accomplish his purposes. So Mor- 
decai looked at it ; so Esther learned to see it ; and 
the result proved that their duty and the designs of 
the Most High had been rightly interpreted. 

But God has never changed any of the princi- 
ples of his providential government ; and here is a 
lesson of far wider application. We, who have the 
same God to Serve, the same Providence to watch, 
may look upon this scene in the life of Esther, and 
learn the duty that belongs to us. By faithfully 
discerning the duty which Providence sets before us, 
and fully consecrating ourselves to its discharge, we 
may properly look for Divine protection and deliv- 
erance in danger, and for success in our aims. 
There is an important sense in which our lot and 
exact position in the church and in the world are 
as truly through the orderings of God's providence, 
as the elevation of Esther to that queenly throne. 
It is true of every one of us, that the circumstances 
about us are not entirely of our choosing, and 
that we are not living as we expected to live. 
The same Providence that ordered Esther's lot has 
ordered ours ; and the same reasoning that influ- 
enced her, may be applied to us. The doctrine of 
providence, as taught in the Scriptures, applies not 



118 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

alone to queens and their stations — to nations and 
their exigencies — to the entire church of God and 
the dangers that threaten her; but the affairs of 
every man — especially of every believer in Christ — 
in every position in life, and at every moment of 
duty or pleasure, are ordered by Providence. No 
larger or more minute control can even be imagined, 
than that claimed by the Scriptural doctrine upon 
this subject. The sparrow cannot fall unregarded 
by His care ; the lily cannot bloom without the co- 
louring of his unrivalled pencil ; not even a hair can 
fall from man's head that the eye of the Father sees 
not. The orderings of God have settled the age, 
the land, and the family, where each of us should be 
born ; and our civil and religious advantages and 
opportunities. God's providence settles each pas- 
tor over a Christian church ; determines who shall 
be his regular, and even who his occasional hearers ; 
and the particular topic of discourse and the pecu- 
liar trains of thought in it, have often a providential 
adaptation to the necessities of the hearers far be- 
yond the knowledge of the preacher. We are as truly 
a part of the Divine plan of providence as Esther 
was. Our voluntary agency may change our place 
in life ; and we may disobey the providential calls 
of duty, as we shall see presently. But with all 
that we can do to order our own affairs, so much of 
things within us and around us, is ordered for us and 
beyond our control, that we may adopt for ourselves 
the principle Mordecai here suggests. Every op- 



DIVINE DESIGNS AND HUMAN DUTY. 119 

portunity of doing and getting good is to be care- 
fully improved; and Providence calls us to embrace 
the advantages and to do the duties, which Provi- 
dence sets before us. 

Many important duties of the Christian life illus- 
trate this great principle. God has given us our 
birth in an age, when we can do much to spread 
abroad his gospel. If we had been born one or two 
hundred years ago, our opportunities would have 
been far less favourable for sending the gospel to In- 
dia or China. There were no Missionary Societies ; 
no translated Bible ; no awakened interest in the 
church upon the subject. The ability now to do 
this work, which God has promised shall be done, is 
a providential call to engage earnestly in it ; and 
faith may believe that we are " brought to the king- 
dom for such a time as this." Let Christians make 
zealous efforts to save souls around them. The faith- 
ful presentation of truth to the heart and conscience, 
is God's appointed means of leading sinners to 
Christ. The efficacy is of God ; but the means we 
are to use. Let us see to our duty. We are weak ; 
therefore like Esther let us draw near to God in 
preparatory devotion, and rely upon his power. "We 
are ignorant, and know not whom God will lead to 
salvation. But we know that the Redeemer shall 
see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied ; Isa. 
liii. 11 ; and that all whom the Father hath given 
him shall come to him. The result is certain and 
our duty plain. Who knoweth but that a few kind, 



120 ESTHER AXD HER TIMES. 

faithful words from your lips may form the connect- 
ing link of that chain of Providence — that chain of 
saving grace with which Providence cooperates — 
which shall draw upward an immortal soul to an ev- 
erlasting salvation ? Let faith watch for providen- 
tial opportunities ; for he that winneth souls is wise ; 
and " they that turn many to righteousness shall 
shine as the stars for ever and ever." 

And Mordecai's principle applies equally to our 
opportunities for getting good. You have an im- 
mortal soul, whose interests you are too prone to ne- 
glect. God gives you precious opportunities to se- 
cure its salvation. His providence has ordered your 
lot in this land. Here the sanctuary unfolds its in- 
viting doors ; here the Bible opens its instructive 
pages ; here you have clear teachings of your sin- 
fulness and exposure to wrath ; and here the meth- 
ods of his recovering grace are set before you. He 
calls and warns and invites and urges you to secure 
salvation. These very opportunities are providen- 
tial indications of duty — providential encourage- 
ments of faith and effort. God gives you these op- 
portunities. He has led you to hear these present 
teachings; he calls you now by the preacher's voice, 
to submit to Christ. Lift up your heart now to him ; 
he calls you to be saved. You are better off than 
Esther ; for the promise comes to you without a 
peradventure. " Whosoever shall call upon the 
name of the Lord shall be saved !" Worn. x. 13. 
Oh, important crisis in the history of an immortal 



DIVINE DESIGNS AND HUMAN DUTY. 121 

being ! "Who knoweth whether thou art come to the 
sanctuary, for such a time, for such an event as 
this? 

"He that watches for providences," said an emi- 
nent servant of God, " will have enough of provi- 
dences to watch." God blesses the souls of those 
men who carefully watch his designs, and earnestly 
endeavour to promote them. We must watch how 
God works in order to know what he calls upon us 
to do. And if we are careless of the lessons of 
God's providence, or of the just interpretation of 
them according to the light thrown upon our duty 
by the word of God, we cast ourselves out of the 
Divine protection, and reject his eternal counsels 
against our own souls. 

But this leads us to consider a fourth principle 
of great importance implied in the words of Morde- 
cai to Esther. He contemplates it as a possibility, 
that she may refuse to do her duty in this important 
crisis, and virtually asks the question, Will this de- 
feat the settled purposes of God ? Notice here, my 
brethren, that the drift of this passage cuts up by 
the roots the usual objection that the sovereign and 
settled purposes of God come into collision with the 
free agency of men. We believe, through the teach- 
ings of the word and of Providence, that God has his 
eternal purposes ; and that these are so carried out 
as to leave man free. Here then arises the question, 
Suppose that any man refuses to do his duty, shall 
God's purposes fail ? Is it possible for man's ne- 
11 



122 ESTHER AND IIER TIMES. 

gleet or disobedience to thwart the purposes of God? 
By no means. Mordecai is certain that God will 
bring deliverance to his people ; and yet he contem- 
plates the possibility of Esther's unfaithfulness. In 
that event he warns her of two results : first, en- 
largement and deliverance shall arise from some 
other quarter ; second, she and her house shall be de- 
stroyed. Here is an important lesson indeed. Men 
may destroy their own souls by unfaithfulness in 
duty; but they cannot thwart the purposes of God. 
He will never lack agents to execute his designs ; 
and the only effect of a sinner's folly and wicked- 
ness will be his own destruction. The great designs 
of Providence will move on ; we cannot stay them ; 
and if we urge not forward the triumphs of the Di- 
vine government, we shall be trodden down and 
crushed in its onward march. 

It is perilous for the Christian church to falter, 
to be negligent, to be disobedient to the beckonings 
of Providence, when she is called to earnest zeal. 
We dare not draw back. However difficult the duty, 
or delicate or responsible, we must go forward. 
Hardly any expression is more worthy of our deep 
pondering than this of Mordecai, For SUCH A time 
AS THIS. Let us watch for duties and seize the 
time, lest our golden opportunities hurry by our lag- 
gard footsteps, and leave us beyond remedy to mourn 
and perish. God will not wait on our loitering. 
Sec Israel scattered, rejected, and wretched, because 
they knew not the time of their visitation. See the 



DIVINE DESIGNS AND HUMAN DUTY. 123 

churches planted by the labours of the Apostles ; 
the candlestick has been removed. Our only safety 
is in earnest faith and diligent obedience. Let these 
motives address our faith, and our fears, and our 
hopes. 1st, God will certainly accomplish all his 
purposes : 2d, If we refuse to do them, he will find 
other instruments : 3d, Our neglect or disobedience 
will be our own destruction : and 4th, We should 
watch and obey his providential indications of duty. 

You may refuse, at such a time as this, to aid in 
prosecuting the cause of missions, by which the 
command and the providence of God now urge you 
to bless a dying world ; you are at liberty to refuse ; 
but that cause will go on. God has certainly pur- 
posed it ; he will find other hearts more willing, and 
other hands more liberal ; and he will punish you 
for refusing to obey his beckoning. You may ne- 
glect your duty to souls around you ; the Redeem- 
er's work shall be done ; and your apathy and diso- 
bedience shall meet their reward. Esther durst not 
disobey, even in the palace ; nor may any man in 
the church of God. Indeed she was brought to the 
palace for such a time and for this very duty ; and 
your place in the church of Christ is assigned to 
you for the very purpose of honouring Christ, as his 
word and the time set your duties before you. 

Let every impenitent soul feel the warnings and 
the encouragements of these weighty thoughts. 
God gives you precious opportunities for securing 
your salvation ; he gives you advantages, which 



124 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

thousands never had; he has led you now to the 
sanctuary and urges you to forsake sin ; he bids 
you remember the time ; he calls you to "flee from 
the wrath to come." In his name, I exhort you, 
as Mordecai exhorted Esther, to consider the great- 
est duty of your mortal life — even the securing of 
an immortal one. Consider these favourable indi- 
cations of God's providence as the gracious fore- 
shadowing of his willingness to pardon. Be very 
certain of this, that God will never bring you into 
his kingdom of grace or glory, against your own 
consent. He will never save you without first con- 
verting you. Seek then his converting grace ; and 
use those means which God blesses for the salvation 
of sinners. Come seriously to the Bible to learn 
his will; bow down humbly at the mercy-seat 
to ask his favour ; draw near to Jesus and choose 
him as your Master. To these things you are now 
invited. Give your heart now to Christ. Possibly, 
however, these teachings excite no interest in you ; 
possibly they excite bitter enmity. This is your folly ; 
and may be your destruction. You may refuse Jesus 
and his salvation now; you may refuse for ever. 
That refusal cannot rob the Redeemer of a single 
jewel in his glorious crown. You cannot thwart 
him. He will fill up the mansions of glory in spite 
of your neglect or opposition. But you bring de- 
struction upon your own soul. Think of this ; and 
refuse not now the call of mercy. These very 
thoughts make this opportunity of hearing the gos- 



DIVINE DESIGNS AND HUMAN DUTY. 125 

pel, more solemn and important. Put not away 
from you everlasting life. " To-day if ye will hear 
his voice, harden not your hearts." Ps. xcv. 7, 8. 
Determine now to be for Christ. Say, now, with the 
Persian queen, I will go in unto the King. Take 
this Bible as your guide ; this Saviour, as your 
Saviour ; Choose God's people as your companions ; 
make his service your delight. Who knoweth but 
you have been led to hear these very truths ; to 
enjoy this season of worship ; that you may cheer- 
fully embrace the gracious indications of God's 
providence, give your soul to the Redeemer, and be 
saved ? 
11* 



126 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 



LECTUEE VI. 

ESTHER'S NOBLE RESOLVE. 

The earnest argument of Mordecai was not lost 
upon Esther. If previously she had any wavering 
of purpose, as she feared for her acceptance before 
her husband, and despaired of being able to succour 
her people ; she now no longer has any hesitation, 
either with reference to the path in which her duty 
urged her ; or in reference to her own immediate 
obedience to the promptings of duty. She has made 
up her mind. She could not know how she would be 
received ; she had the same reasons to fear as when 
she first replied to Mordecai; she could not put 
down the apprehension that the issue might be her 
own destruction. She resolved to go before Ahas- 
uerus — and she resolved wisely. Every wise decis- 
ion is made in view of both sides of the question. 
Before the mind of Esther rose all the difficulties 
she could not overlook ; but before her rose also 
the urgent necessities she could not but feel. And 
the balance was turned by the promptings of faitli 
in the covenant of her God. It seemed like madly 
rushing upon death to venture unbidden before the 



Esther's noble resolve. 127 

king; it seemed like tempting the providence of 
God to her sure destruction, if she neglected the 
favourable juncture of duty ; and faith urged that 
the opportunity now offered to secure an important 
blessing. And it is plain to us now, that Esther 
made a reasonable choice. She might perish, but 
with a clear conscience, if she made the venture ; 
she would certainly perish, so Mordecai urged, if 
she neglected this effort. And it seems strange 
indeed that men generally do not more fully and 
frequently recognize the truth, that there is less re- 
sponsibility in doing our duty, than there is in evad- 
ing it ; that daring as Esther's resolution may 
justly be thought, she would have been more wick- 
edly daring, if she had resisted her duty and turned 
from the expostulations of Mordecai. Now she ex- 
poses her mortal life to the possible anger of Ahas- 
uerus ; but had she made no effort to relieve her 
people, she would have exposed her soul to the 
certain anger of a greater King — the Ruler and 
Protector of Israel ! 

But it is not the tendency of piety, or of its prin- 
ciples, to set us free from the wise restraints of pru- 
dence, nor to encourage the careless performance 
of any duty. Genuine faith differs widely from a 
presumptuous confidence, not only as founded upon 
better evidences, but as exerting a different and 
more salutary influence upon ourselves. Presump- 
tion is bold, even to insolence ; and venturesome, 
because fearless. True faith, on the contrary, is 



128 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

keen-sighted to discern the real difficulties before 
us and around us ; it is therefore cautious ; and 
while not undervaluing difficulties, exhibits its 
true strength by meeting and overcoming fears 
and obstacles. Faith prompts the most careful 
and judicious measures to secure the end we seek ; 
and walks on the line between the extremes of 
despondency, that deems all exertion useless, and 
presumption, that deems exertion needless. And 
here is the truthfulness of this narrative to human 
experience. Had many a human writer penned 
this history, we would have read of Esther's bold- 
ness to secure the desired relief; rising up imme- 
diately at the suggestion of Mordecai, and pro- 
ceeding at once to the unbidden presence of the 
king. But it is far otherwise here ; and the lesson 
here taught is more faithful to nature. 
\ Two matters here exhibit the queen's prudence : 

First, As becomes a pious woman, Esther uses 
means to secure the special favour and blessing of 
God upon her momentous enterprise. No pious 
mind should be willing to engage in any duty upon 
which first the blessing of God is not sought ; much 
less will such a mind engage in any responsible and 
important enterprise in a thoughtless manner. You 
remember Ave noticed that the name of God does 
not occur in this book. But it must be acknow- 
ledged, that a solemn service of this kind is a plain 
recognition of the Divine existence and of the Di- 
vine rule. Esther teaches us here, that engage- 



Esther's xoble resolve. 129 

ments of peculiar importance demand special exer- 
cises of devotion. Fasting is an extraordinary 
means of grace. It is to be made use of — never in 
the light of a penance, the Bible nowhere enjoins 
penance ; much as it says of penitence — in token 
of our humiliation before God ; when we anticipate 
a threatening evil, or mourn under chastisement, 
or lament our deep unfaithfulness, or undertake a 
duty which calls for special Divine strengthening. 
The distress and peril of the Jews through the suc- 
cess of their foe, Hainan, have called Esther to this 
perilous duty ; her hope is to avert the calamity ; 
and to fast is the appropriate symbol of her humil- 
iation before the Lord. The fastings spoken of in 
Scripture do not always imply a rigorous abstinence 
from all food. The prophet Daniel fasted three 
full weeks : he ate no pleasant bread, neither did 
flesh nor wine come into his mouth. Dan. x. 2, 3. 
Though brief fastings might imply an entire absti- 
nence from food, longer seasons were not so kept. 
Daniel ate for the support of nature ; but refrained 
from the delights of the table. Thus we suppose 
the fast of Esther was kept for three days. The 
luxurious viands spread for the queen of Persia lie 
untasted before her ; her earnest anxieties are 
awakened for her people ; and her soul is humbled 
before her God. Her maidens were associated with 
her in this solemn duty. The pious Esther had 
perhaps gathered about her as maids of honour to 
the queen, a band of the daughters of Israel ; or 



130 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

perhaps her quiet but earnest zeal for the faith of 
her fathers and for the glory of her covenant God, 
had led her to teach those immediately under her 
control the name of Israel's Lord. Perhaps among 
no other heathen nation could Esther have kept se- 
cret her nation and her religion, so well as among 
the Persians. For they were like the Jews of the 
dispersion in this, that they worshipped without 
either temples or images ; and therefore the external 
difference between the Jew and the Persian was 
less striking. Yet if Esther had thus gathered 
about her a band of Jewish damsels, we can easily 
see that her faith was not an entire secret in the 
palace, so that the danger which Mordecai pointed 
out was greater : " Think not with thyself that 
thou shalt escape in the king's house.' ' One Jew- 
ess, and she the queen, might possibly escape the 
execution of the edict ; but a band of females ador- 
ing Jehovah in the very palace, could scarcely ex- 
pect exemption though the queen stood among 
them. But it sets the piety of Esther before us in 
a favourable light, that she was surrounded by 
maidens who were ready to join with her in her de- 
votions. Circumstances may throw even a good 
man into bad company, and his duty may detain 
him there ; but the man who has it in his power to 
choose his company, and is then found with the idle, 
the frivolous, or the wicked, may justly be judged, 
as to his own character, by the company he keeps. 



ESTHER'S NOBLE RESOLVE. 131 

Judge a man by the books he loves to read, and by 
the associates he cherishes. 

But Esther desired also that the prayers and hu- 
miliation of God's people should be joined to the 
supplications in the palace for the success of her im- 
portant enterprise. So she urged Mordecai to 
gather the Jews in Shushan that they also might 
fast. If they neither ate nor drank literally, it is 
likely that the three days were reckoned according 
to Jewish custom : two nights and the intervening 
day. Thus our Lord lay three days in the grave ; 
being buried on our Friday evening and rising on 
Sabbath morning very early. This view is strength- 
ened by the fact that Esther went in to the king on 
the third day. In thus associating the Jews with 
her in this solemn dutv, Esther teaches us her esti- 
mate of the prayers of the brethren, and urges us 
to desire an interest in their intercessions. For our 
God is the hearer of prayer. 

Having thus sought God's blessing, Esther, in the 
second place, used due means to win the favour of 
her royal husband. 

She teaches us the right order: God's favour first, 
man's next. But while man's favour is subordinate 
always, a pious regard to God's will does not allow 
us to disregard the means of reaching and influenc- 
ing our fellow-men. That is a spurious indepen- 
dence, which is reckless of the views and opinions 
of the world around. Dependence on God is en- 
tirely consistent with wise efforts to influence men 



132 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

about us. "I am made all things to all men," is 
the expression of an earnest Apostle, who 'yet af- 
fords us in his character, a righteous independence 
with regard to man, and an entire dependence for 
all his success upon the power of God. Esther rises 
from fastings and prayer, and makes such prepara- 
tions as seem adapted to touch favourably the heart 
of the king. We may judge from the preceding 
narrative, that she was a woman of great personal 
beauty ; and it is well known that in all ages ele- 
gance of person has been rather characteristic of 
the Jewish female. And now the budding rose that 
a few years since had been transplanted from the 
nursery of Mordecai to the royal garden, has ex- 
panded into the full blown blooming of a stately 
matron ; to a husband's eye, a riper and more cap- 
tivating style of beauty. To heighten the impres- 
sion, the queen arrayed herself in the magnificent 
robes of her station ; threw perhaps over her shoul- 
ders a mantle which he had admired ; and placed in 
her hair a brilliant ornament, chiefly prized as his 
gift. She knew how much depended upon touching 
a tender chord in the bosom of her husband. 

The Bible says very little to excite, and nothing 
to commend, the vanity of our race, in male or fe- 
male. If the object of Esther had been merely the 
adorning of her beautiful person, and while thus ar- 
rayed in purple and precious stones, she had lacked 
the nobler ornament of a pious and believing spirit; 
then we would find no approbation here of her royal 



ESTHER'S NOBLE RESOLVE. 133 

robes. But in truth, the outward adorning is a 
matter of but small importance, if the heart is truly 
right; and the dress may be more or less costly, ac- 
cording to the worldly circumstances of the wearer. 
On the one hand, she should not be proud, who has 
nothing to adorn her but her dress ; and on the 
other hand, we can easily know that pride may scoff 
at silks, as well as wear them. Never before per- 
haps had Esther been so careful in the arrangement 
of her toilette ; yet her heart was fixed, not upon 
her dress, but upon the great object she used these 
means to secure. If personal vanity had as little 
usually to do with the adorning of even pious fe- 
males, we would need fewer cautions upon the sub- 
ject of extravagance ; we would see larger attention 
given to improved minds and cultivated affections ; 
and happy hearts everywhere would make happy 
homes. Then would our " daughters be as corner 
stones, polished after the similitude of a palace." 
Ps. cxliv. 12. 

Behold now the intrepid yet the trembling Es- 
ther clothed in royal apparel and about to venture 
in to the king ! It requires far more calm and de- 
liberate courage to move forward into a great peril 
in this way, than it does to rush into the excitement 
and strife of a battle. There is every reason to 
judge that the conflicts in Esther's mind were those 
we too would have felt in a case of so great import- 
ance ; where the issue is unknown ; and where we 
cannot but fear that it may be adverse. On the 
12 



134 ESTHER AND IIER TIMES. 

one hand, fear of the king depressed her ; on the 
other, hopes of divine aid and deliverance buoyed 
her up. These peculiar alternations of hope and 
fear, we doubtless have all felt. But faith bore her 
forward. Esther feared, for she was human ; but 
be it recorded to her praise, she did not falter. 
She has left now the apartments of the women, and 
perhaps her attendants weeping, as they forecast her 
fate; and has passed to the king's sanctuary. The 
frowning guards, that kept the door where she was 
to enter, start up in amazement at the strange sight 
of a queenly, yet an unbidden suppliant at that 
proud throne, whence Vashti had been so rudely 
thrust down ; and held their breath with sympa- 
thetic terror, as the beautiful petitioner passed on 
perhaps to meet her death. The executioner of the 
royal mandates, ever prepared for his work of blood, 
stood ready with half drawn scimetar to carry out 
the stern decree of Persian law. The eye of Es- 
ther took all this in at a glance ; and her heart, ah ! 
it had been soothed to calmness in the presence of 
her God ; and farth in Israel's covenant held back 
a woman's fears. The dread portal is passed ; and 
the eye of Ahasuerus is upon her. Is he her hus- 
band, or her judge ? her deliverer, or her execu- 
tioner ? Will the golden sceptre move ? Or will 
the stern eye of the despot gaze coldly upon his un- 
bidden guest ? What a moment of solemn expect- 
ancy ! Not for Esther's fate alone ! That was a 
small matter. The decree for death to a woman 



ESTHER'S NOBLE RESOLVE.^ 135 

acting such a part, would but have dismissed her 
from a marble to a golden palace ; from an earthly 
to a heavenly crown. But upon the lips of Ahasue- 
rus trembles the fate of her people. The crisis is 
come, and past ! The smile of the king assures, her ; 
he reaches forth his golden sceptre. Esther is 
welcome and ISRAEL IS SAFE ! 

The king held out the golden sceptre ; and the 
queen drew near, and touched the top of it. Thus 
her life was safe ; but she had not yet accomplished 
her errand. She felt however assured that her na- 
tion was unsuspected; and that she was not in- 
cluded in the dreadful decree ; and this perhaps 
formed the basis of her further proceedings. The 
king stops not with granting her her life. His 
gracious words are, " What wilt thou, queen Esther, 
and what is thy request ? It shall be even given 
thee to the half of the kingdom. " But how strange 
appears to us the termination of this important 
errand ! Esther had sought this interview to ask 
the life of her people, and their deliverance from the 
malice of Haman ; and yet her request seems to be 
a new favour upon the haughty favourite. She sim- 
ply asks that Haman may be invited with the king, 
to partake with her of a banquet of wine ; and when at 
this banquet, the king again affords her an opportunity 
for a large petition, she renews her request, that 
these two guests may again be present on the next 
day, upon a like occasion. Why does Esther delay 
thus to urge that great request which weighs so 



136 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

heavily upon her heart ? Especially, why does she 
substitute what seems a favour to Haman, while yet 
she aims at the overthrow of all his schemes ? 

It is possible, Esther was too much agitated to 
present her request that day before the king. In 
the prospect of some great duty, we brace ourselves 
to its performance ; but when the crisis is past, the 
excitement dies, and we are all unnerved. Esther 
had suddenly passed from extreme anxiety to joy 
unbounded; and her feelings, controlled by too 
great an effort, would not allow her, during that day, 
to venture further. She must gain entire compo- 
sure before she can plead so great a cause. But 
she may have been influenced, also, by a prudent 
policy. She desired to make the proper impression, 
and to embrace the fitting time in reference to three 
parties upon this great occasion. 

First. In the most effectual way, she wished to 
secure the king's favour, and to lead him to engage 
himself voluntarily upon her side. In the court, 
and while he sat upon that stately throne, sur- 
rounded by the fearful tokens of her recent peril, 
the time and place were not so fit to plead, nor even 
to mention such a matter. She was about to accuse 
a man upon whom the king had lavished his highest 
honours ; she was indeed about tacitly to censure the 
king himself for the folly and even the wickedness 
that had signed so thoughtlessly that fatal decree — 
and it became her to move cautiously. 

But secondly, it was a master-stroke of policy 



ESTHER'S NOBLE RESOLVE. 137 

that included Haman in the invitation to the ban- 
quet. It threw that wily minister completely off 
his guard, and prevented him from plotting any 
schemes to counteract the queen's designs. Know- 
ing, as she did, both the king and his minister, she 
played with the pride of the one, while she prepared 
to awaken the king's anger, and have it consummate 
its purpose by the presence of its guilty object. 

And thirdly, by this course she wished effectually 
to turn the minds of the Jewish people away from 
herself, as the instrument of deliverance, and fix 
them upon God, the great Deliverer. The Jews 
of the city had formed high expectations concerning 
Esther's interview with the king. They had prayed, 
with solemn fasting, for her success ; and yet if her 
success had been immediate, they would have been 
too much disposed to glorify the queen as the author 
of it. It may have been with feelings of bitter disap- 
pointment, that they heard of her request for Ha- 
inan's presence at her banquet of wine ; so little do 
men know of the wise plans which work their 
surest good. But if their disappointment drove 
them again to depend upon God, they would be 
better prepared to recognize his hand in the final 
result. 

But doubtless, the restraining influence of God's 
providence led Esther to these first requests. The 
motives we suggest, were the agencies to effect His 
purposes ; and other matters must be introduced 
into the history before all is ready for Haman's dis- 
12 * 



138 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

grace and destruction. We may not know God's 
restraining finger to keep us from evil, or to delay 
a coming good ; " but he that belie veth shall not 
make haste," Isaiah xxviii. 16. Let the pious 
mind roll its care upon God. What he does 
and what he omits to do, shall work for good. 
As Esther invoked the Divine blessing, we may 
believe that Divine restraint influenced her modest 
requests. 

But while we wait the movements of Providence, 
which for a little season leave Esther out of sight, 
let us learn from the scenes in this lecture, how we 
may discharge those important duties of our own 
lives, where it is often impossible to decide w r hich is 
greatest — the fear to act, or the necessity to act ; 
for such perplexing responsibilities occur, every now 
and then, in all our paths through life. 

Christians are often placed in circumstances of 
deep perplexity. They seem forsaken of God. 
Their enemies laugh ; their fears rise ; their sins 
prevail. Learn, 1st. These are no strange trials. 
God appoints them to prove his people. Perhaps 
never a man lived a Christian life without passing 
through many seasons of difficulty and perplexity. 
It is the province of faith to support us in such 
times. Faith is reliance upon the truth of God, and 
its clearest proof is seen in times of severest trial. 
A coin that counterfeits gold may escape detection 
when tested by a weak acid, and may not melt in an 
ordinary fire ; but pure gold will abide the action 



ESTHER'S NOBLE RESOLVE. 139 

of the strongest acids, and be only brighter in the 
hottest crucible. Would you look upon some dark 
scenes in religious experience, and see God appa- 
rently deserting his people ? Read your Bible. 
Recall those trying three days, when Abraham 
journeyed to Moriah with his beloved Isaac, mourn- 
ing for his son, fearing ever again to look his be- 
reaved Sarah in the face, yet firmly resolved to do 
his Lord's bidding. Forget not Esther's three 
days' fasting in anxious uncertainty for the issue of 
her petition. Remember those three days — most 
remarkable in the history of the world — when the 
Lord of glory lay in the sepulchre of Joseph, when his 
apostles were dispirited, and hardly hoped and be- 
lieved enough to keep them from scattering, and to 
lead them on the third morning to the tomb where 
Jesus had lain. Trouble is no new thing in the 
ways of piety. Then, learn, 2d. Trials are not de- 
sertions. They prove our faith ; they awaken our 
gratitude ; they quicken our love ; they show the 
Lord's loving-kindness. We can easily see that it 
was better for Abraham ; better for Esther ; better 
for the apostles of Christ, that they passed through 
these trials. We see that our brethren are holier 
and more useful after severe discipline ; and why 
should we not judge our own trials designed for 
good? Learn, 3d, our duty. We are not to trust 
appearances, nor judge the frowns of Providence 
proofs that we are cast off, nor shrink from the 
path of right. We may have our fears. This is 



140 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

natural ; but we must not yield to fear. We should 
use all proper means to find relief. So Esther 
prays for divine aid, and propitiates the king. 

But, especially, we should make the bold ventures 
of faith. Let us argue that when matters are dark- 
est, faith is still reasonable. We have surely nothing 
to gain by desponding. If we cannot look to God, 
we cannot look elsewhere ; but we may look to God 
in the darkest hour. When our eye cannot pene- 
trate the darkness, and even faith can see but one 
step in advance, let us take that step. The dark- 
ness of a path of duty is not so dreadful as the de- 
spair in every other path. If shut up, like Esther, 
to say, "If I perish, I perish; if I must die, let it 
be in the effort of duty." If we may say, "Better 
die doing right, than live doing wrong,' ' how much 
more, "Better die trusting God than perish beneath 
his curse through despair of his mercy !" 

Sinful men, who have never fled to Christ for 
salvation, and lie beneath the curse of a broken 
law, should learn a most important lesson from 
Esther. 

She and her people were exposed to destruction. 
The condition of every impenitent soul is unspeaka- 
bly more serious and dreadful. The decree of a 
King more mighty, more just, and more inflexible 
has gone forth. God's voice cries, " The soul that 
sinneth it shall die." Ezck. xviii. 4. At the worst 
Ahasuerus could kill the body ; but we may " fear 
Him who after he has killed has power to destroy 



ESTHER'S NOBLE RESOLVE. 141 

both soul and body in hell." Matt. x. 28. The 
edict of Persia was nominally unalterable ; God's 
law is really unchangeable ; that decree was unjust, 
but the sinner is condemned by a righteous sentence. 
If Mordecai wept, and Esther fasted, and the Jews 
lay in sackcloth ; well may every sinner fear for the 
wrath of God against him. Let your deep personal 
responsibility lead you to ponder Esther's example, 
and flee from the wrath to come. 

Esther hoped for deliverance through the favour 
of the king. The sinner can expect safety and de- 
liverance only through the sovereign mercy of God. 
The king sat on his throne, and held in his hand a 
golden sceptre. If he refused to hold it forth, the 
boldest petitioner must die. Our sovereign King sits 
upon a throne of grace, and the touch of his golden 
sceptre secures the immortal life of the priceless 
soul. If he touches us not, we die. We are truly 
dependent upon the grace of Christ — and the issue 
is infinitely more important than when Esther drew 
near the Persian throne. It is reasonable, if we 
would secure eternal life, that we should bow at the 
throne of grace, and ask for it. 

Nor does the sinful soul lack fears and hopes, per- 
plexing thoughts and urgent arguments, akin to 
those of Esther. She flattered herself, as sinful 
men are prone to do. But Mordecai's faithful ex- 
postulation urged her to find safety in the path of 
duty. The queen in the palace must not neglect 
her people ; and no sinner, in the church or else- 



142 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

where, can secure his soul's salvation, unless he goes 
boldly forward in his most important duty — to bow 
submissively before a sovereign God ! Esther feared 
also. The king might not receive her. Already her 
name, perhaps, was written upon the dark list, es- 
pecially proscribed in Hainan's fierce revenge ; she 
had not seen her lord's face for many days ; she 
was unbidden to his presence. With many trem- 
blings she resolved to go ; and doubtless was driven 
at last by the well pondered reflection, that here 
only was safety. A faithful voice rung in her ears, 
to stay away was but to perish. It seemed a des- 
perate undertaking whichever way she turned ; but 
her only hope was in resolving, " I will go in to the 
king." Perhaps he might extend to her the golden 
sceptre for her life and the safety of her people. 
If he did not, she must die ; yet even then there 
would be a satisfaction in dying in the virtuous ef- 
fort to deliver Israel. 

The position and resolution of Esther may remind 
us of a similar remarkable resolution recorded in 
the Bible. Just such a desperate case ; just such a 
decision ; and just such a gracious deliverance oc- 
curred long before in Israelitish history. 2 Kings 
vii. 3, &c. The city of Samaria was closely be- 
sieged in the time of Ahab; the provisions were 
exhausted ; famine reigned in the streets ; and 
the destruction of the city seemed near at hand. 
One eventful evening as the shadows of twilight 
were gathering over the land, there sat four leprous 



Esther's noble resolve. 143 

men in the gate of the besieged city, at the point 
of starving, and reasoning with themselves on the 
folly of making no earnest effort to save their 
wretched lives. Why sit we here, said they, until 
we die ? Ours is a desperate case. If we sit here 
we die ; if we enter into the miserable city, the 
strong and needed warriors are perishing there for 
hunger, and they have nothing to spare for lepers, 
unclean in person and unfit to fight ; if we go forth 
to the enemy, it is very likely they will put us to 
death. They might take healthy men prisoners ; 
but in all likelihood they will kill lepers. But it is 
our only hope. Desperate though it seems, every 
other hope is cut off. They may kill us — but we 
must die if we do not go. And they may spare our 
lives ! Our very wretchedness may appeal to them ; 
and we may live. These men acted upon this des- 
perate resolve ; and lo ! God had interposed for the 
deliverance of Samaria. They not only saved their 
own lives, but brought plenty into the city, and re- 
joicing to their people. 

When sinful men begin to awake to their true con- 
dition before the holy law of God, they are often in 
deep and painful perplexity, such as these instances 
describe. Let every such soul use this wise reason- 
ing, respecting its salvation. Every sinful soul 
must perish, unless Christ Jesus has mercy upon it, 
and extends the golden sceptre of his renewing 
grace. Lay aside the flatteries, which delay or pre- 
vent your earnest approach to the throne of grace; 



144 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

for they are delusive. Listen not to your fears, 
though they are many and greatly distress you. 
You may think God has recorded your name for de- 
struction ; you may feel that you are not bidden to 
approach ; you may tremble lest your day of grace 
is past, and it is in vain to pray ; you may even say, 
I have felt ; I have wept ; I have prayed ; and it is 
all in vain for me to approach to God. Sinful soul, 
make the very worst of your case. Know the very 
worst, if you can, of your sins ; imagine the worst 
of the hardness of your heart and of God's unwil- 
lingness to save ; and the stronger you make the 
difficulties preventing your salvation, and the more 
unlikely it seems that a righteous God will have 
mercy on your soul the more urgent are the rea- 
sons for giving your immediate attention to the con- 
cerns of religion, and for pressing at once to the 
footstool of Divine mercy. It is your only hope ! 
You perish certainly, if you neglect salvation ; and 
you can but perish, if you give it your earnest at- 
tention. There never can be a good reason for any 
sinner's neglecting his salvation ; there never can 
be a good reason for a living sinner ceasing to im- 
plore God's pardoning grace. Even the certainty 
that God will not hear some, is no good reason ; for 
no man can certainly know that this is his case. If 
the heart is hard, refusing or neglecting to pray will 
make it no softer ; if your sins are many now in 
number, to neglect the mercy-seat will but tend to 
swell the number ; if there is danger that even al- 



ESTHER'S NOBLE RESOLVE. 145 

ready the Lord will not forgive, that danger increases 
the longer you go on in sin. It may be a place of 
deep solemnity, and a time of deep responsibility, 
to go alone before your God, and plead earnestly for 
the salvation of your sinful soul ; as it was deeply 
solemn for Esther to venture before the king. But 
it was folly and responsibility unspeakably greater 
for her to shrink from this duty. God's people 
would have found deliverance otherwise, while she 
would have perished. And so may every sinner 
judge of his own case. It is a serious thing to be 
an anxious sinner ; it is inexpressibly more serious 
to be a careless sinner. It is a solemn thing to 
plead before God for your soul's salvation ; it is in- 
finitely more solemn to be under his wrath and curse, 
and neglect such pleadings. No man can evade his 
responsibilities ; you are shut up to the choice of one 
solemn thing or another — to perish in your sins, or 
to make an earnest effort to secure eternal life. 

Thus before every impenitent soul is substantially 
a choice like this of Esther's, yet of infinitely 
greater personal inducements. When you have 
made the very worst of your own condition, if dis- 
posed to fear, and to argue despondingly ; when you 
fear most that God will not hear; when you judge 
yourself wholly unbidden to approach the mercy- 
seat, your case is no worse than hers ; and the reso- 
lution is a wise one, " I will go in to the king ; and 
if I perish, I perish." 

But while we argue the matter thus with the fears 
13 



146 ESTHER AND IIER TIMES. 

of sinful men, we are not willing to allow that full 
justice is done to the calls of the gospel of grace by 
this view of the subject. Ye all, who have souls de- 
filed with sin, and are urged by the invitations of 
mercy to come to the great and healing fountain of 
a Saviour's blood, are in circumstances far more 
hopeful than the Persian queen. She came in be- 
fore a capricious tyrant; and you come before a 
gracious God. She understood not how an unal- 
terable decree of Persia could be set aside ; she 
feared it was impossible ; and we may know how God's 
law, while yet unchanging, is magnified and satisfied 
by the sacrifice of Calvary. She came unbidden 
and without a word of encouragement to that throne, 
whence many had been cast down ; and though our 
fears often place us upon a level with her, yet 
against such fears should we still press on ; or better 
than this, our faith should lay hold upon the many 
commands and solicitations and promises of God's 
holy word, which are extended to every humble soul, 
and on which we are fully warranted to rely. She 
came to plead for Israel's temporal deliverance; 
we come to plead for the soul's life. 

Look at it any way you will, and the sinner 
should flee to Jesus. If you are not as deeply af- 
fected by your sins as you are conscious you should 
be, yet come to Jesus, for he gives repentance. If 
he seems not to hear or even to spurn you, so did he 
to an humble woman once in the days of his flesh, 
whom yet he received and blessed. Matt. xv. 21 — 



ESTHER'S NOBLE RESOLVE. 147 

28. Your path though dark is not a strange one ; many 
a saved sinner has trodden it before. Your difficulties 
though numerous are just such difficulties as others 
have passed through and touched the golden sceptre. 
Let not your perplexities and fears cause you to 
lose sight of the necessities yet deeper, which urge 
you on. Your sins may be many. Not a doubt, 
but that they are greater than you think for. You 
have no claims upon mercy long abused. This is 
very true. But while pondering your difficulties 
choose not the very worst. The worst thing you 
can do is to turn your back on Christ — the only 
Redeemer. You must perish, if you are unbeliev- 
ing ; you must perish, if you are hardened ; you 
must perish, if you are careless ; you must perish, 
if you neglect the great salvation ! You can but be 
rejected, if you fly to Christ. Resolve that you will 
go to Jesus. Christ never rejected any. His own 
word is, " Him that cometh unto me I will in no 
wise cast out." John vi. 37. Resolve that you 
will be the first one rejected, if you are not received. 
Your eternal life is at stake. Drive away your fears. 
Fly to Jesus. Be in haste lest you be too late ! 

Come humble sinner in whose breast 
A thousand thoughts revolve ; 

Come with your grief and fears opprest 
And make this last resolve. 

I'll go to Jesus, though my sin, 
High as a mountain rose ; 

I know his courts, I'll enter in, 
Whatever may oppose. 



148 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

Prostrate I'll lie before his throne, 

And there my guilt confess : 
I'll tell him I'm a wretch undone 

Without his sovereign grace. 
I'll to the gracious King approach 

Whose sceptre pardon gives : 
Perhaps he may command my touch, 

And then the suppliant lives. 

Perhaps he will admit my plea, 

Perhaps will hear my prayer ; 
But if I perish I will pray. 

And perish only there. 
I can but perish if I go, 

I am resolved to try ; 
For if I stay away, I know 

I must for ever die. 



THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 149 



LECTURE VII. 

THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 

The unfinished plans of Esther we may not fur- 
ther pursue, till we delay to trace the strange work- 
ings of Providence in preparing for their complete 
success. Within the compass of a few verses, we 
may see the eventful changes of human life. Who 
knoweth indeed what a day may bring forth? " The 
Lord maketh poor and maketh rich ; he bringeth 
low and lifteth up." 1 Sam. ii. 7. 

The first proud step that passes before us is that 
of Ham an "joyful and with a glad heart." Added 
to all the honours heretofore enjoyed in the realm 
of Persia by Hainan the Magnificent, a new one had 
that day been granted from a most unexpected quar- 
ter ; and perhaps his vain and conceited mind imagined 
himself beginning a new career of preferment. So 
far as Esther has designed by her attention to the 
favourite, either to conciliate the king, or to throw 
the wily Agagite off his guard, she has completely 
succeeded. The new honour swells his heart with 
new pride, and no suspicions of evil enter his mind. 

It may seem a strange thing to us in the abstract 
13* 



150 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

reflection, that in a world so completely governed 
by a righteous God, wicked men can be joyful and 
glad of heart. Yet we see it all around us ; we 
find it fully recognized in the sacred Scriptures, 
that there are pleasures in sin ; and the joy of the 
wicked in their prosperity has distressed and 
grieved many a dejected believer. So a Psalmist 
writes, " My feet had almost gone ; my steps had 
well nigh slipped; I was envious at the foolish, 
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." Psalm 
lxxiii. 2, 3. These things are a part of the won- 
derful dealings of His hand, who tries the hearts 
of the children of men. So we need not grieve 
while such men as Haman pass before us in the joy 
of their hearts. Nor let us embrace the fallacy of 
supposing that since Haman was not a Jew, we 
may justify his hatred to the Israel of God ; or that 
the long cherished enmity between Israel and Ama- 
lek was any proper reason for his continued hostil- 
ity. We may thus account for Hainan's feelings 
and conduct ; but to explain a matter of this kind 
is not to justify it. It is not from the circumstances 
of a man, it is from his very nature that he is under 
obligations to love and obey God. No matter in 
what family, or nation, or church a man may be 
born ; no matter what his education or prejudices ; 
no matter whether he is willing or unwilling : so far 
as right is concerned, he is bound by all the laws 
of God ; bound to practise justice and speak the 
truth; bound to love his neighbour as himself; 



THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 151 

bound to obey every dictate of righteousness ; bound 
to glorify God "in his body and spirit/ ' The peo- 
ple of Haman were rebels against the God of 
Israel ; they had fought against his people ; and it 
is not wonderful that Haman identified himself in 
the pride of an unrighteous heart, with the unright- 
eous cause of an unrighteous people. And there 
are not wanting men who in our own age will sup- 
port their nation, their party, or their church in 
wrong, as firmly as in right. This no righteous man 
can ever do. That my nation is wrong in any mat- 
ter, may be no reason why I should turn my hand 
against my people ; but it is a reason why I should 
refuse to give my support to that which is wrong. 
If the church in which I was born, is erroneous in 
doctrine, or corrupt in practice, it is vastly more 
important that I should be faithful to God's truth, 
than to any organization that is set in array 
against him. It is utterly inconsistent with the 
principles of righteousness to judge, that every man 
should continue to hold the sentiments with which 
he was educated. Amidst the jarring ideas of the 
world, many must be wrong ; and improvement im- 
plies change. Every change towards truth and 
righteousness is wise ; and our responsibilities lie in 
this, that we should make our changes in obedience 
to an intelligent conscience, and not at the prompt- 
ings of impulse, or at the solicitations of vice. 
Long continuance in iniquity — education in iniquity, 
can afford no adequate apology for ungodliness. 



152 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

Yet there are not wanting men, who resolve to live 
and die as their fathers have done, even though the 
light of God's serious truth convinces them that 
their fathers were wrong. There are not wanting 
men, who would plead as an excuse, nay, as some 
justification for disregarding Jehovah and trans- 
gressing his commands, that they are not members 
of the church ; and perhaps that their fathers were 
not before them. The reasoning is as wicked as it 
is impotent. Apply it to Satan, and you would 
make him sinless before the judgment seat of God, 
and an undeserving sufferer in chains of dark- 
ness. For, no long array of generations in human 
life can stretch so far back as the rebellion of the 
first apostate ; and no fighting against the church 
of God can exceed his malevolence. If Satan is 
not sinless, though long and thoroughly ungodly, any 
man is wicked who stands off from the truth and the 
church of God ; or sets himself in opposition to Je- 
hovah. Hear ye this, all ye sons of men ! Woe, on 
the one hand, to that ungodly child of a pious pa- 
rentage, who breaks the covenant of God that has 
descended to him through a long line of those that 
loved and served the Lord ; that breaks down in his 
household that altar of piety whence the flame of 
devotion has ascended for ages back ; and that 
begins a new generation of the sons of Belial, 
trained without prayer and without the covenant 
seal of consecration upon them! And woe, on the 
other hand, to that man whose father and whose fa- 



THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 153 

tlier's father were " aliens from the commonwealth 
of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise." 
Eph. ii. 12 ; were careless of salvation and hard- 
ened in sin ; who adopts and endorses the bad prin- 
ciples in which he was trained, refuses the wiser and 
holier teachings by which God would correct his 
ways, and trains up his household to a like and a 
more resolute ungodliness ! The curses of a right- 
eous God will smoke against such men ; the fire of 
his anger will burn against them, all the more fiercely 
from the very thoroughness of their ungodliness. 
No sinner before His eye can be justified in iniquity. 
Haman is an enemy to God, and none the less so, 
that his royal line has been of consistent wicked- 
ness for many generations back. 

And this man is joyful and glad of heart. How 
is this consistent with the declaration of the Scrip- 
tures, " The wicked are like the troubled sea which 
cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt; 
there is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked?" 
Isa. lvii. 20, 21. 

Wait a moment and you may understand. Even 
the sea is not always " the troubled sea ;" and you 
may gaze far down into the calm and pure waters, 
as if no mire could ever becloud their crystal clear- 
ness. The sea is the emblem of instability. A 
passing breeze disturbs that deceitful calm ; and the 
swelling and turbid waters show their angry might. 
The peace of the wicked is like the sea ; as deceit- 
ful, as unstable, and as dangerous in its stormy re- 



154 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

coil. Another bold step — we will not say a proud, 
much less a haughty one — another step, firm and 
bold, advances in these scenes, to teach us how ea- 
sily that deceitful joy in Hainan's heart may change 
to the turbid swellings of hatred and malice. As 
Haman passed out of the palace, his eye fell on the 
impassionate form of Mordecai the Jew. 

This, it may be, is their first meeting since the open 
understanding that they are mortal foes. And now 
surely that so important a matter is at issue between 
them ; when even Esther the queen seems to show 
complaisance and policy enough to extend to the fa- 
vourite an invitation to her banquet of wine ; when 
it seems important that no new provocation be 
stirred up in the breast of so powerful a foe, surely 
now Mordecai will give some tokens of external re- 
spect ; the lips that bewailed the edict with a cry so 
bitter, will speak one soft word, to mollify increas- 
ing wrath. At least Mordecai, having sufficiently 
wounded Haman's pride, may now step silently 
aside, and avoid aggravating the w T ound. But let 
not the standard of worldly policy be used in judg- 
ing this high principled and manly Jew. " It is 
better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in 
princes." Psa. cxviii. 9. We cast no reflections 
upon Esther's prudent policy, as if it implied less up- 
rightness of character. Possibly Mordecai sees here 
a principle, which had not occurred to the queen 
in her apparent court to Hainan; or we may have 
here an example of the differing judgments of even 



THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 155 

pious minds, touching the same things. Even de- 
ciding that Esther adopted no wrong policy, we may 
admire Mordecai's consistent firmness. " Morde- 
cai stood not up nor did him reverence." His trust 
is fixed upon that God who can deliver ; he asks no 
mercy from that man's hands from whom he would 
scorn to receive it ; and he has no mark to show of 
a respect he does not feel, for the foe of his God 
and of his race. 

" Then went Haman forth that day joyful and with 
a glad heart." But how shallow the joy of a wicked 
mind ! how easily is it disturbed by trifles for which 
a good man would care nothing ! As he passed forth 
from the palace he saw Mordecai the Jew. The 
sweet is turned to bitter ; the gladness has become 
wretchedness ; the muddy sediment at the bottom 
of his cup of earthly pleasure is stirred up, and the 
potion tastes like gall and wormwood. Look care- 
fully at the principles here involved ; for they gov- 
ern widely the scenes of earth. Look at the con- 
trasts between these two men ; between their char- 
acters primarily ; between their conduct and their 
enjoyments, as flowing from their characters ; and 
learn that lesson of salutary wisdom from our Di- 
vine Teacher of far later days, " A man's life con- 
sisteth not in the abundance of the things which he 
possesseth." Luke xii. 15. We are not told how 
Mordecai felt at this casual interview ; but we have 
no reason to suppose that with all his anxiety for 
the hastening issue, there was a single sting of that 



156 ESTHER AND IIER TIMES. 

remorse, which poisons the current of vital joy in a 
mortal's veins. We know this much, that every in- 
telligent mind would prefer to share the feelings of 
Mordecai, rather than those of Haman. The fa- 
vourite of the king is deeply wretched. He hurried 
home, and in the presence of his wife and his confi- 
dential friends gave utterance to feelings, which 
may often dwell in the minds of wicked men ; but 
which in the usages of our social manners, as com- 
pared with oriental customs, far less frequently 
among us, find utterance in language so explicit. 
He recounted in their ears, as an oriental would, his 
riches, his children, his honour ; he told them of the 
new mark of respect, which he had that day re- 
ceived from Esther the queen ; and then the lament- 
able confession is, after all, that these are empty 
baubles ; that these coveted things of earth can af- 
ford no real happiness — " All this availeth me no- 
thing so long as I see Mordecai, the Jew, sitting at 
the king's gate." Let Haman tell us, for he has had 
experience ; let Haman tell us, for in the confidence 
of his friends he speaks the truth ; let Haman tell 
us the true value of those glittering, those attractive 
things for which men so earnestly toil, through all 
their busy lives. Wealth, honour, earthly pleasure 
never made a man either wise, or good, or happy. 
It is not in their power to subdue the strength of 
evil passions ; they are the very food they live. 
upon. As wisely might we try to quench a fire with 
oil, as to allay the thirstings of pride and ambition 



THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 157 

and revenge by larger measures of worldly prosperity. 
What the Scriptures say of one such passion is ap- 
plicable to others, " He that loveth silver shall not 
be satisfied with silver, nor he that loveth abundance 
with increase. " Ecc. v. 10. Indeed no man under 
the sway of an evil passion is the keeper of his own 
spirit. The sight of one, who has never harmed 
him, may make him a prey to corroding thoughts ; 
the silent rebuke of good men upon his evil becomes 
a torment ; and, like Mordecai before Haman, he 
sees those as he passes along the streets, who fill 
him with bitterness. 

How different is it with him, who in the language 
of a great worldly poet, 

" Feels within him 
A peace above all earthly dignities, 
A still and quiet conscience I" 

See this exemplified in Mordecai. He is not 
honoured of the world ; he holds an humble office 
in the king's gate ; he is the special object of that 
stern decree, which has called forth his people's 
sorrow ; but the calm of his heart, neither Haman 
nor Ahasuerus can disturb. If Haman is more 
honoured, Mordecai is more worthy of honour. If 
Haman is a prince, Mordecai deserves a nobler title ; 
he is truly A man. What is the secret of the dif- 
ference ? The same that obtains in all ages and in 
every land. Not a difference of rank or title ; of 
robes or wealth ; of strength or learning. Not a 
difference solely of education. But deeper than 
14 



158 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

all this, a difference in the sterling principles of 
truth, uprightness, and the fear of God, which form 
the character and control the life. True piety in 
any age is based on principles which exalt the man. 
True piety is true dignity ; true piety alone gives 
true happiness, and lifts us above the agitations of 
the baser passions ; while the joy of the wicked may 
turn to gall at any unexpected moment. 

" Then went Haman forth that day joyful and 
glad of heart." But he teaches us that the wicked 
have need to tremble in the very hour of their high- 
est mirth. His joy was founded upon false concep- 
tions ; and was felt upon the very verge of his 
destruction. He was elated that moment by the 
invitation to Esther's feast ; but had he understood 
the matter, it would have filled his heart with 
terror. Thus is it with man ; often fearing, where 
God designs his highest good; often rejoicing on 
the eve of sorrow. Indeed there is no reasonable 
ground for happiness for ignorant and sinful man, 
unless first he has been reconciled to God as his Fa- 
ther, has been purified as to his conscience by the 
precious blood of Jesus, and is going forward 
under the teachings of the Spirit of grace in the 
path of duty. He may be walking by faith as was 
Mordecai in that dark day ; but he is inexpressibly 
happier than Haman. For he is assured that infin- 
ite justice, and wisdom, and power, control all cur- 
rent events ; and he need not fear their unforeseen 
results. Infinite faithfulness is pledged that all 



THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 159 

things shall work together for good to them that 
love God. Rom. viii. 28. In short it is reasonable 
that the righteous man should fear nothing, whether 
prosperous or adverse; while the wicked man has 
just reason to fear at all times, and to fear every- 
thing. The pleasant garden in which he finds his 
delights is planted upon a thin crust over a raging 
volcano. His highest joys may prove the sources 
of his deepest griefs ; and the hour of highest ex- 
altation may precede but a moment his utter over- 
throw. " Then went Hainan forth that day, joyful 
and with a glad heart. But that glad day, itself 
not without a drop of gall to spoil the sweetness of 
his cup, was the last day of Haman's earthly joy. 
The sun of the next morning rose to smile upon the 
exaltation of his hated foe, and to witness his own 
unwilling part in a stately ceremony for the honour 
of Mordecai ; and ere that sun sunk again beyond 
the distant mountains of the west, it shone full on 
Haman's gallows. If men will rejoice while they 
are afar off from God, let them tremble also beneath 
his holy eye, and at the thought of his righteous 
hand. " Surely thou didst set them in slippery 
places, thou castedst them clown into destruction ; 
how are they brought into desolation as in a mo- 
ment !" Psa. lxxiii. 18, 19. 

We cannot but think that the conduct of Morde- 
cai filled Haman with surprise, as well as with mor- 
tification, rage, and revenge. Men of an imperious 
temper are generally cringing and cowardly; so 



160 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

Haman afterwards shows himself; and they do not 
understand the high sentiments of honour in noble 
men ; much less can they appreciate the power of 
godly principles. Had Haman now been in Morde- 
cai's place, the trembling spaniel would have fawned 
upon the hand upraised to take his blood ; and have 
licked the very ground on which he trod, to suppli- 
cate in abject terror the pity of his foe. He cannot 
comprehend the courage that will not quail in view 
of the danger now threatening the Jews. He is 
mortified to find himself the weaker man of the two ; 
and that Mordecai had a peace beyond his power 
to disturb. But Haman refrained himself. He is 
enraged enough at the immovable Jew to draw his 
sword and smite him dead upon the spot. But 
possibly the laws of Persia protected the life of 
Mordecai, so that even Haman could not touch him, 
till he had secured the king's approval. Haman 
restrained himself, not only from personal violence, 
but perhaps from giving any external notice of the 
fierce passions now raging in his breast. It is the 
common influence of much intercourse with the 
world, that men learn to school their feelings ; and 
teach the cold countenance to hide the warm emo- 
tions of the heart. 

We will not delay to notice long the consultation 
of Haman w T ith his wife and intimate friends. He 
recounted all his grandeur and all his reasons to be 
happy; but how instructive, yet how humiliating, 
the confession that an humble Jew sitting in a far 



THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 161 

inferior place, could destroy all his enjoyment of 
these things ! In the light of this scene r how poor 
are earth's best honours, riches, and pleasures ! 
They are no criterion of worth. Earth's brightest 
crown may be upon the head of earth's greatest 
villain ; earth's most splendid apparelling may fall 
in graceful folds around a polluted person ; earth's 
mightiest intellect may be the world's greatest 
scourge ; and the highest summit of wealth is no 
proof of the worth of him who stands upon it. The 
vilest of men may attain earth's most coveted gifts ; 
and true excellence may dwell where penury and 
obscurity hide it from the notice of all. 

The friends of the chafed Haman endeavoured to 
calm him ; and advised that without delay he should 
claim revenge on Mordecai. This seems to show that 
the express permission of the king was needed, be- 
fore he could reach the Jew; but they doubtless 
thought, that after what had passed, the king would 
easily grant so insignificant a favour. Haman pro- 
ceeds as if the slight request was already granted ; 
as he had done before in securing his lucky day for 
Jewish destruction. Indeed he and his friends had 
reason to believe, since a decree had gone forth for 
the slaughter of all the Jews, that Ahasuerus would 
think little of anticipating the day for the death of 
one specially obnoxious. So Haman yielded to the 
suggestion of his friends, and erected a lofty gal- 
lows that Mordecai might be hanged upon it. The 
shallow peace of a wicked mind was restored. The 
14 * 



162 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

thing pleased Haman. Little dreamed he whose 
form should be there suspended. Little cared he 
for his rebellion against the people and the God of 
Jacob. "The wicked watcheth the righteous and 
seeketh to slay him ; the Lord will not leave him in 
his hand." " The wicked plotteth against the right- 
eous, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth; the 
Lord shall laugh at him ; for he seeth that HIS DAY 
is coming." Psa. xxxvii. 12, 13, 32, 33. 

But we may leave Haman and his counsellors an- 
ticipating a gratified revenge ; and under cover of 
the shades of evening that have fallen upon the 
earth, let us turn our feet to the gates of the palace. 
Here is another of those instructive lines, which oc- 
cur so frequently in this eventful narrative : " On 
that night the king could not sleep." We are not 
told the immediate and natural cause of the mon- 
arch's sleeplessness. If the record ran, " On that 
night Haman could not sleep ;" we could easily con- 
jecture a sufficient reason in the agitation of un- 
happy passions. Yet Haman possibly slept well ; 
as does many a sinner on the last night of his mor- 
tal life. But on that night the king could not sleep. 
He complains of no pain or sickness to make him 
wakeful ; he seems not specially occupied with busi- 
ness, nor specially agitated by strong passions, 
which banish his rest. It is one of those unac- 
countable seasons of restlessness, when we vainly 
court repose; and when the softest couch cannot se- 
cure it. It is no more in the power of the highest 



THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 163 

monarch than of his meanest subjects, to secure this 
great blessing. But though we do not know the 
specific natural cause for the loss of sleep in Ahas- 
uerus, there was a good reason for it. This is one 
of those occasions which the most sceptical cannot 
explain without the admission, " This is the finger 
of God." There is a King, mightier than Ahasue- 
rus, who never sleeps. On his head are many 
crowns ; his eyes are as a flame of fire ; he walk- 
eth in the midst of the golden lamps which he has 
placed to enlighten the earth. Eev. i 13. He 
knows not only the works, and the faith, and the 
patience of his people ; but the opportune time to 
bring these forth to light ; he knows the designs of 
their enemies, and the nice occasion when their 
well laid schemes may best be thwarted. The King 
of Zion is sleepless ; and he lays a wakeful pillow 
beneath the head of Persia's monarch. If the king 
had not lain sleepless that night, what then perhaps ? 
Would Mordecai have suffered death upon the gal- 
lows before the hour of Esther's intercession ? 
When we introduce into the chain of providence, 
which Divine skill has wrought, a single if or a 
single perhaps, we make room for a thousand. If 
Mordecai had already received some trifling reward 
for saving the king's life ; if Esther had hastened 
this by impatience for her protector's advantage ; if- 
the sleepless king had sought amusement in music, 
or elsewhere than in the chronicles of the kingdom ; 
a thousand ifs might have defeated the result. But 



164 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

Providence made the king that night sleepless and 
serious ; and he commanded that the book of the 
records of the kingdom should be read before him 
in those wakeful hours. 

The Persian kings, as we are informed by the an- 
cient historians, kept a kind of diary of events, 
in which remarkable occurrences were recorded, and 
the names of persons who deserved rewards or pre- 
ferment for valuable services. The Jews do not fail 
at this point to introduce some fabulous and marvel- 
lous stories, to heighten the effect of this occasion 
beyond the simple dignity of the inspired narrative. 
The Former Targum says that the reader chosen by 
the king at this time was one of the sons of Ham an ; 
and the Latter Targum says that he opened miracu- 
lously at the very place ; and when he saw recorded 
there the hated name of Mordecai, he turned over 
to another part of the records ; but the refractory 
leaves flew back, and he was forced to read the ne- 
cessary passage. This is man's method of render- 
ing more miraculous the dealings of God's provi- 
dence, which are more truly wonderful without the 
unlikely miracle. To us, it seems likely, that se- 
veral hours of the night were consumed in restless 
tossings before the king gave over the attempt to 
secure repose ; and several more in reading to the 
sleepless monarch ; so that the night was far spent, 
and even day had dawned when the reader reached 
the pages which told of Mordecai's unrequited 
faithfulness. For when the king heard of this, and 



THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 165 

projected a reward for Mordecai, Haman was al- 
ready waiting in the court of the palace. The en- 
tire circumstances following prove that day had 
now dawned after the sleepless night. This passage 
reminded the king how near he had been to death ; 
and his conscience reproached him for ingratitude to 
his deliverer. 

It seems obvious, from the manner in which the 
name of Morclecai is mentioned here, and the effect 
produced by it upon the king, that he felt no preju- 
dice nor hostility against the Jews. It begins now 
to appear that, however guilty the king's thought- 
lessness in signing the decree, he had no malice 
against that people ; and but little comprehended the 
proclamation that had sent lamentation and distress 
throughout his wide empire. 

Let us not be surprised if good deeds often pass 
unnoticed, and work no apparent advantage to those 
that do them. Should this be our experience, we 
may possess our souls in patience. Well doing is so 
much its own reward, that we can afford to have our 
most laborious and self-denying duties unnoticed by 
the eye of man. Let it be a comfort to know that 
our names and deeds are recorded in the chronicles 
of an eternal kingdom ; that they are not forgotten 
by our gracious King ; that if, for the present, they 
are passed by, it is not in thoughtlessness of them, 
but for reasons of infinite wisdom and righteous- 
ness ; and that in due time the smallest service done 
for His glory shall meet a full reward. The books 



166 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

shall be opened and publicly read ; and every secret 
thing shall be revealed. This is indeed no source 
of comfort to a sinful mind; nor does it lack its 
aspect of solemn awe to the most upright ; " for 
there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good 
and sinneth not." Eccl. vii. 20. If judgment for 
any of us, in that great day, must be settled simply 
by what we have been and what we have done, we 
may well fear for the opening of the books, in the 
presence of the eternal King. "If thou, Lord, 
shouldest mark iniquity, Lord, who could stand?" 
Psa. cxxx. 3. Happily for us there is a way 
pointed out for pardon of past iniquity and for re- 
conciliation to God ; as well as a way of duty and 
righteousness in his holy service. When the books 
are opened, another book shall be opened, which is 
the book of life of the Lamb slain ; and they whose 
names are there recorded shall receive the blessings 
purchased by his priceless blood. Our hopes of this 
infinite honour must be tested by the sincerity of our 
attachment to Christ, and the zeal of our obedience 
to his commands. Let us strengthen our love ; let 
us quicken our obedience ; let us renew our faith ; 
let us keep in chief remembrance, that our services 
are rendered to Him who tries our hearts. Little 
matter if men know not the devotion of our service; 
little matter if the left hand knoweth not what the 
right hand doeth ; little matter if our best deeds are 
unrequited on earth, or if men give us returns of 



THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT* 1G7 

base ingratitude. " In due season we shall reap if 
we faint not." Gal. vi. 9. 

The sacred volume brings before us, most remark- 
ably, the true excellence of human life ; and urges 
us to secure it. In one of its narratives it brings 
before us a friendless boy, sold into bondage by the 
treachery of his own brethren, cast into prison by 
a woman's wickedness, and left to languish there by 
a courtier's ingratitude ; yet without the guidance of 
a wise and loving father, without friends or wealth, 
or fame, or even liberty, it shows us Joseph, the 
wise, the good ; despite of all his troubles, the 
happy; the benefactor of Egypt, and the Saviour 
of Israel. 

In another narrative it sets before us a prisoner 
in chains, and under examination before the noble 
and the honoured of his age ; and extorts from the 
lips of the highest dignitary, the candid confession, 
Almost am I ready to change places with thee. 
And the prisoner is not surprised. He would rather 
be Paul with chains upon his hands, and the peace 
of God in his heart, than Agrippa the slave of 
unholy passions, though he wears a crown upon his 
brow. The Bible has lessons of wisdom far other 
than the men of this world. Men say, Keep up ap- 
pearances. The Bible says, " Keep thy heart with 
all diligence." Prov. iv. 23. Men say, Cleanse the 
outside of the cup and platter. The Bible says, 
Cleanse first that which is within. Men would teach 
us to bow down respectfully at the feet of Hainan, the 



168 ESTHER AND HER TIME?. 

Magnificent. The Bible bids us admire and imitate 
the upright, the conscientious, the courageous, the 
believing Mordecai. The true excellency of man 
must be found in his principles. 

Please notice, that the Bible declares to us the 
true dignity of man ; and sets before us the sterling 
excellencies for which every man may strive. " Seek- 
est thou great things for thyself/' Jer. xlv. 5 — 
riches, or honour, or fame ? How small is the en- 
couragement to seek these in the real gain they 
bring, or in the prospect of successfully attaining 
them ! But few among the sons of men can reach 
any high place of honour or riches. With all your 
toiling to reach honour, you may fail to secure it; 
just as you seem to lay your hand upon it, some 
more favoured candidate for a shallow popularity 
may carry off the prize. With all your striving 
for wealth, riches may take wings and fly away, 
just as you feel secure. To say nothing then of 
the unsatisfying nature of these tilings ; nothing 
of their transient gratification ; nothing of the 
feeble hold you have upon them ; suffice it to 
say, not every man gets rich, who toils for riches ; 
not every man gains honour, who aspires to it. 
But he that knocketh at the gate of heavenly wis- 
dom, shall find the entrance wide thrown open ; he 
that seeketh, findcth. " Blessed are they that do 
hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall 
be filled." Matt. v. 6. "Whosoever shall call upon 
the name of the Lord shall be saved." Rom. x. 13. 



THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 169 

Possibly you Cannot reach riches ; holiness you may 
reach. The pleasures of the world always have 
disappointed those that possess them most fully. 
'The pleasures of piety are only the more satisfactory 
the longer they are enjoyed ; and he, who has the 
most of them, is the most desirous of following on 
to know the Lord. The Bible holds forth the 
richest treasures alike to the lofty and the lowly. 
The pearl of great price is offered to those that 
will sell all they have and buy it. Matt. xiii. 45, 46. 

And do not these scenes in the career of Haman 
bring fairly before us the thought, that the crisis of 
a man's life comes often at an unexpected time ? 
The joys and honours of Haman have reached their 
highest point, at the very moment when he is about 
to fall from them for ever. The soul unreconciled 
to God is never one moment secure. The voice of 
wisdom says, " Seek ye first the kingdom of God 
and his righteousness." Matt. vi. 33. Should the 
crisis of life come unexpectedly upon you, are you 
prepared for it ? Should the great King ask this 
day, What shall be done to this man for the past of 
his life ? would he add, Bring forth the best robe 
and put it on him ? He only is wise who has made 
God his friend, through a Saviour's blood ; and is 
thus prepared either for longer life in usefulness, or 
for a sudden and an unexpected death. 
15 



170 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 



LECTURE VIII. 

THE EXALTATION OF MORDECAI. 

A DAY of the most important business dawned 
upon the Persian court after that sleepless night; 
and the king is no sooner ready to enter upon the 
engagements of the day, than Hainan is ready to 
wait upon him. What a faithful servant the Agagite 
seems to be ! He is already in attendance upon the 
king at so early an hour; as if both he and his mas- 
ter had passed a restless night ; as if eager for new 
service for Persia. When the king asked who was 
in the court, Haman was already in attendance. 
But we may not judge from the outward appear- 
ance. It is no affection for his master, nor zeal 
for the honour of the kingdom, that has drawn the 
prime minister so early to the palace. He has de- 
signs of his own to secure ; revenge, that fierce 
and almost uncontrolable passion of a wicked mind, 
impels him ; and the eagerness of his pursuit makes 
him blind to everything, but the gratification of his 
own passions. And to his excited eye, everything 
promises favourably. There is even no long delay 
before he is called to go before the king ; and the 



THE EXALTATION OF MORDECAI. 171 

way seems open immediately to make his request 
before him for the death of Mordecai. But the re- 
markable change which has taken place in the king's 
mind during that sleepless night — so different from 
Hainan's object and desires — bids us note the fin- 
ger of God in ordering the minutest details of our 
mortal life. The slow-moving interference of Es- 
ther seems about to sacrifice Mordecai to her negli- 
gence or delay ; but even this is designed in infinite 
wisdom to secure more illustriously the relief of the 
chosen people, and to exhibit more gloriously the 
workings of their covenant Grod. Had Haman pre- 
ferred his request the night before ; or had he se- 
cured an audience a little earlier, before the reader 
of the Chronicles had reached the name of Morde- 
cai, he might perhaps have secured his purpose. 
But Haman knows nothing of the events that have 
transpired, since he last saw the king; his ready in- 
vitation to come in, he interprets wholly in his fa- 
vour ; and he cannot suppose that at so early an 
hour of the day, any other serious business already 
occupies the king's mind. 

Haman awaits the words of Ahasuerus as a ser- 
vant waits upon his master. It is not becoming in 
the court of such a prince, that the subject should 
speak before he is asked his business, and permis- 
sion is given him to address his sovereign. So when 
Esther came in, the first words were uttered by her 
husband. So Haman waits, expecting to hear from 
the lips of Ahasuerus, What wilt thou, Haman? 



172 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

And what is thy request ? The man, who but the 
day before had supped with the king and queen ; and 
who to-day has a second invitation to a similar hon- 
our, expects a liberality befitting the state of the 
king. And if but the evening before, when Esther 
came in unbidden, the monarch had pledged that 
her request should be granted even to the half of the 
kingdom ; if now the king seems to be in a liberal 
mood ; surely Haman, when called by the king to 
come, may freely make the small request he came 
to offer. But instead of making the inquiry, What 
wilt thou, Haman? the king seems to open the 
door for larger honours to him. How gratefully 
sounded the inquiry of the king, What shall be done 
to the man whom the king delighteth to honour? 
Haman refrained himself from the promptings of 
revenge ; for pride and vanity are stronger passions 
with him than even his hatred of Mordecai. How 
natural the thought of that heart, so wrapped in self 
and so elated with the advantages already enjoyed ! 
Whom can this mean, but me? "Now, Haman 
thought in his heart, To whom would the king de- 
light to do honour more than to myself V How de- 
ceitful is pride ! How unhappy is that w T orld which 
is full of it ! How wretched do we make ourselves 
and each other, when self and self-aggrandizement 
engross our thoughts ! 

Hainan's past success and his inordinate vanity 
prompt the belief that these contemplated honours 
are to fall upon him ; and yet as the king has named 






THE EXALTATION OF MORDEOAI. 173 

no one, he has the opportunity of telling his whole 
heart upon the subject with the air of a disinterested 
person. It might indeed have been dangerous for 
this ambitious man to propose such honours, if they 
had been openly for himself; and when we know 
that his secret thought was for himself, we must 
judge that for the safety of the king and the peace 
and welfare of the kingdom, Haman was an ex- 
ceedingly dangerous man in the Persian court. 
Every reader of ancient history knows how fre- 
quent are the revolutions in despotic empires ; and 
how often the monarch, separated by his state and 
his luxuries, alike from the sympathies and the 
knowledge of his people, is suddenly murdered, and 
his throne usurped by some ambitious favourite, 
whom he had lifted to honour and power. So, as 
the Scriptures tell us, Hazael put to death the king 
of Syria and reigned in his stead. 2 Kings viii. 
15. And Haman, here, gives us reason to suspect 
that he entertained secret thoughts of treasonable 
ambition. Under cover of suggesting honours to 
be paid to another, he reaches forth his hand to 
grasp a dignity, that was regarded as peculiarly 
royal. Perhaps because the man, who looked to- 
wards kingly honours, was especially dangerous in 
those eastern governments, the Persian law made it 
a capital offence for any subject to wear the king's . 
robe. Haman perhaps would not have dared to 
mention such a thing to Ahasuerus but for two rea- 
sons. 1st, the king's question allowed him to do 
15* 



174 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

this, without seeming to desire this honour for him- 
self ; and 2d, the ancient historians give us two ex- 
amples of persons in Persia who did wear the king's 
apparel and were left unharmed ; and if the date 
we assign to this book is correct, these cases both 
occurred not very long before this time.* It is 
quite likely that one of these cases Haman had be- 
fore his eyes, as it occurred through the orders of 
Xerxes, when he made this representation to Ahas- 
uerus, " For the man whom the king delight eth to 
honour, let the royal apparel be brought which the 
king useth to wear, and the horse which the king 
rideth upon, and the crown royal which is set upon 
his head ; and let this apparel and horse be deliv- 
ered to one of the king's most noble princes, that 
they may array the man whom the king delighteth 
to honour, and bring him on horseback through the 
streets of the city, and proclaim before him, Thus 
shall it be done to the man whom the king delight- 
eth to honour. " 

Here we seem to have in full Haman' s idea of 
earthly magnificence. To wear the robes of roy- 
alty ; to be the object of the people's admiration ; 
to enjoy a triumph whether deserved or not ; these 
are the most empty honours of earth ; these are the 
gay bubbles that burst the soonest ; the splendours 
these, that are most speedily forgotten. Here we 
may see the true character of Haman ; and judge 

* See the cases cited iu Gill, in loco. 



THE EXALTATION OF MORDECAI. 175 

that he who wishes to ride the horse of Ahasuerus 
and to wear his robes, would not scruple if he dared 
to ascend the throne. The king has reason to 
guard against Hainan's ambition ; and if we see 
afterwards that Ahasuerus saved the Jews from the 
revenge of the Agagite, we may judge from these 
indications, that the intervention of Esther saved 
the realm of Persia from revolution ; and the life 
of the king from the ambition of an unprincipled 
favourite who now covets the regal robes. 

What an unexpected — what a blighting stroke to 
the crafty policy of the Amalekite, was the answer 
of the king ! Just as Haman looked for the nomi- 
nation of some high dignitary thus to do for his 
honour ; just as he expects in his hour of exaltation 
that his errand to the palace will be one of easy 
accomplishment ; just as the vision of Mordecai's 
death fills up his imagination of that triumphal 
day, the mortifying mandate issues from the royal 
lips : "Make haste, take the apparel and the horse 
as thou hast said, and do even so unto Mordecai the 
Jew that sitteth in the king's gate ; let nothing fail 
of all that thou hast spoken." No more astounding 
command, no deeper mortification could be given to 
Haman. Mordecai, the Jew ! the man he most 
hated; the man whose nation Ahasuerus himself 
had doomed; whose life Haman came there that 
hour to seek ; for whom, already, he had prepared a 
degrading gibbet ! Haman was so proud and self- 
ish that he would have attended with grief and envy 






176 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

upon the triumphal honours of any other man ; had 
he not interpreted the king's liberal designs in his 
own favour, he would not have ventured so high a 
bid ; but that all this should be for Mordecai, and 
at his own suggestion, was grief and vexation indeed. 
Gladly would Ham an have avoided the hated spec- 
tacle ; gladly now, for once, would he allow the 
precedence to some other prince of the realm ; since 
the stately ceremonial must occur, he would gladly 
be absent from it. But the king has appointed him 
to do what himself has devised ; and Haman dare 
not refuse. 

And now the streets of Shushan echo with the 
shouts of a glad multitude as a procession marches 
in triumphal splendour to honour a man, who has 
saved the life of the king. Haman himself has 
stripped off the sackcloth with which his malice had 
clothed the limbs of Mordecai ; and, with a heavy 
heart, has arrayed him in the purple and white gar- 
ments of Persian royalty. The king's favourite 
horse is brought forth, and the crown is placed — 
not upon Mordecai's head, this would be too pre- 
sumptuous — but upon the head of the horse. For 
this was the custom of the realm on occasions of 
great ceremonial ; and even among the Romans the 
horses were crowned when they drew triumphal 
chariots. And the proclamation, " Bow the knee 
to the man whom the king delighteth to honour," 
was made by a princely herald ; and the voice was 
Hainan's. And now as they passed in triumph 



THE EXALTATION OF MORDECAI. 177 

through the city ; and the Jews stood amazed to see 
their bitter foe thus sounding forth the honours of 
one of their brethren ; and the giddy populace 
joined the throng and swelled the triumph ; perhaps 
they passed by the newly erected gallows, in full 
view seventy-five feet high, rising above the sur- 
rounding buildings, meant to be a conspicuous sight, 
and now quite as easily seen as the man who built 
it could desire. What a contrast between that em- 
blem of shame, and this spectacle of triumph! 
Whether it caught Mordecai's eye ; whether he un- 
derstood it ; whether his heart swelled in gratitude 
to God for his deliverance, as a token of the coming 
deliverance of his people, we know not. It appears 
afterwards, on that memorable day, that its erection 
and the object of it, were no secrets to the attend- 
ants around the king. No one knew better than 
Haman why it lifted its head so high ; no one felt 
more deeply than he, the contrast between what the 
king did for the Jew that day, and what he would 
have done. 

Let us notice here, as a lesson of practical im- 
portance, that all this mortification of Haman 
arises solely from the state of his own heart ; and 
that his trouble is the pure result of his own wick- 
edness. Very plainly the king did not design to 
put any slight upon Haman by the triumph of Mor- 
decai ; nor had the princes or the people of Persia 
any reason to regard this as the beginning of 
Hainan's disgrace. It was one of the king's most 



178 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

noble princes that was to make this proclamation 
on behalf of Mordecai ; and had Haman any cause 
to complain that he was appointed to such an office? 
The honours of Haman had not been transferred to 
the Jew ; and he had no reason to judge that the 
king had withdrawn his esteem. The favour of the 
king is still with Haman ; and he is mortified only 
because he hates Mordecai. The evil passions of 
men are their worst tormentors ; and no wretched- 
ness in this life is greater, than when a man is the 
prey of his own turbulent emotions, acting without 
restraint. The sea is troubled now within Hainan's 
breast, and casts up mire and dirt. 

The characteristic difference between the two men 
is consistently carried out here, as elsewhere in the 
narrative. Mordecai is as humble and retiring as 
Haman is proud and aspiring. The honour so un- 
expectedly bestowed does not puff up Mordecai with 
vanity ; he takes no part in the proceedings of the 
day, save as they are put upon him. Godly men 
may receive the world's honours, yet they do not 
set their hearts upon them ; they are therefore less 
liable to be injured by their inflaming influence upon 
human pride or ambition ; and they can better bear 
either to be neglected, as Mordecai so long was, or 
to be suddenly called forth from their obscurity, as 
was his case, without undue aspirations. In our own 
history we can see similar contrasts. No man less 
than George Washington would take a u step in ad- 



THE EXALTATION OF MORDECAI. 179 

vance to clutch an impending honour;"* no man de- 
served honours more ; no man wore them more 
meekly. On the other hand no man more ambitious 
and scheming, no man a more miserable wretch in pri- 
vate life or a traitor in public, than one who had every 
quality of honourable descent, and of liberal education, 
and of polished manners, and of penetrating mind to 
make him the idol of the people ; no man more unwor- 
thy than Aaron Burr. See the modesty of Mordecai. 
After the honours of such a day, he quietly resumes 
his seat at the king's gate. We can hardly think 
that he would be suffered to remain in an inferior 
post ; we cannot suppose that in the deadly strife 
between himself and Human, Mordecai regarded 
with indifference any indications of the king's favour 
to himself, for his people's sake. We judge that he 
would gratefully and piously trace the honour thus 
bestowed upon him, to the kind interference of an 
Almighty hand. But just because he here dis- 
cerned the workings of Divine wisdom and Divine 
energy, his faith would trust to God's hand for fur- 
ther workings ; he would not hasten by undue inter- 
ference the hour of deliverance ; and he passes be- 
fore us with the calmness of true dignity. He does 
not tarry in the streets as long as possible, to drink 
in the applause of excited crowds ; he does not 
hastily gather the Jews together to exult over Ha- 
inan, and anticipate the hour of God's full deliv- 

* Irving' s Life of "Washington. Yol. i. p. 452, 



180 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

erance ; he does not hurry to seek an interview with 
the king whose life he had saved, now that he finds 
him somewhat awake to gratitude ; he does not take 
into his own hands the intercession he had before 
committed to the queen. Mordecai uses his honour 
with a moderation that seems more surprising, the 
more we reflect upon it. He calmly returns to his 
seat at the king's gate. " He that believeth shall 
not make haste." Isa. xxviii. 16. Mordecai has 
calmly committed his interests, and the far dearer 
interests of Israel to the guardianship of Israel's 
God. And here he teaches us a new lesson of faith ; 
different from those he taught us before, but not in- 
consistent with them. He has taught us before, 
that faith in God is the efficient spring of zeal and 
duty. When there is anything for us to do, faith 
bids us do it. But here Mordecai reminds us that 
there are times when God's people, having done that 
which God's providence bids them do, are called upon 
to leave the rest in his hands, and calmly to abide 
his gracious and powerful working. When such a 
crisis arrives, it is as wrong to be impatient, as at 
other times it is wrong to be idle. Perhaps Morde- 
cai recalled the momentous period of his people's 
eventful history, when their hosts at the Red Son, 
though beset by imminent peril, were commanded to 
"stand still and see the salvation of God." Exod. 
xiv. 13. Action, Mordecai has already taken. He 
had urged Esther to use her influence ; he had as- 
sembled his people and joined them in solemn fast- 



THE EXALTATION OF MORDECAI. 181 

ing and prayer ; and now, believing in God and re- 
posing upon his covenant, he can afford to wait and 
learn the meaning of the change, which God had 
thus begun, in favour of Israel. 

But while dark adversity and dawning prosperity 
find Mordecai firm in faith and joyful in his God, 
unhappy Haman has no such support in his hour of 
bitter mortification and deep disappointment. With- 
out real virtue, without true dignity of mind, he is 
filled with renewed hatred and tormented with fiercer 
desires for revenge. He cannot but look now upon 
the darker aspects of the case. Had the king 
named any one but Mordecai, he might have borne 
it better ; and have even congratulated himself, that 
if not chief in the triumph, its details had been of 
his suggestion ; and to him had been entrusted the 
honour of conducting it, as one of the king's most 
noble princes. But as the honour fell upon Morde- 
cai ; as Haman drew the contrast between what the 
king had done that day for the Jew, and what he 
had designed to do for him ; as. he knew how fickle 
monarchs are, and how speedy is the fall of an 
eastern favourite when once his foot has slipped; 
and as he had not personal courage to face the least 
appearance of danger, Haman is filled with grief 
and anxiety. He stays not to listen to the mur- 
murs in the streets ; he wishes not to pass into that 
palace, where Mordecai, still unbending and irreve- 
rential, and now feared as well as hated, sits before 
him in the gate ; he dares not venture now before 
16 



182 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

the king to prefer the request that had carried him 
so early to that morning audience. Haman hastened 
home mourning, and having his head covered. This 
was no uncommon symbol among the orientals of 
grief, confusion, and shame. So Plutarch tells us, 
that when the earlier orations of Demosthenes were 
poorly received, he went home having his head cov- 
ered and in great distress. We may imagine how 
great indeed was Hainan's grief, that he could not 
avoid giving this public notice of his mortification, 
though the king gives as yet no token that he feels 
any displeasure at him. Yet we can easily inter- 
pret Haman's thoughts. The human conscience is 
a wonderful power ! It oftentimes runs far in ad- 
vance of all the intellect can discern; and antici- 
pates those divine judgments, which it is conscious 
are so well deserved. 

Haman hastened to his house and called together 
the same counsellors, whose advice had embittered 
the unexpected occurrences of the day. But they 
have no comfort for him now. There is a lesson 
which few sinful men are willing to learn, save by 
bitter experience, that sin flatters only till the 
wretched mind is hopelessly entangled ; but when 
the tide turns, everything begins to bear against his 
comfort and his success. Men wisely plan their evil 
schemes ; and eagerly prosecute them ; and enjoy 
their early success in them ; and the counsels of 
friends and the deceitful suggestions of Satan are 
embraced, with few thoughts of future failure. This 



THE EXALTATION OF MORDECAI. 183 

is all flattery. Little do they think that they stu- 
pefy conscience, that Satan leads them captive; 
little do they consider that God's infinite 'wisdom 
counterplots their schemes ; and that his justice and 
power are arrayed for their destruction. But when 
God ceases to forbear and begins his judgments, 
then their companions no longer can afford them 
comfort ; and Satan cares no longer to maintain his 
successful deceits. A good man's comforts are the 
deepest when he needs them most ; the wicked are 
forsaken in the hour of distress. The chief conso- 
lation of the wicked is forgetfulness ; and there are 
times and there are troubles, when men cannot for- 
get. Miserable comforters are the friends of the sin- 
ner in the day when God begins to let loose upon him 
his terrors. Haman may remind us of Judas, the 
betrayer. The chief priests who abetted his villany 
and paid him for it, refuse to share his remorse. 
" What is that to us ? See thou to that !" Matt, 
xxvii. 4. The apparent friends who counsel a man 
to sin, stand off or croak, when the trouble comes. 
The counsellors of Haman portend from these new 
occurrences, only calamity and certain destruction 
to him. A man's tempters to sin often prove his 
tormentors ; and an enemy of God and his church 
can find in the end neither refuge nor comfort. 

Well worthy of serious pondering are the further 
words of these counsellors of Haman. " If Morde- 
cai be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou 
hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against 



184 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

him, but shalt surely fall before him." We cannot 
regard these words as the utterance of a mere su- 
perstitious feeling. Perhaps these men, like Haman, 
were Amalekites, and spoke the oracular words of 
a long and bitter experience. Or, this may be the 
utterance of a deeper impression widely felt among 
the Gentiles, and established upon the surest found- 
ation of truth, that the Jewish people were under 
the special protection of Almighty God. And truly, 
the world has reason to know that there is an Eye 
watching over Zion, that there is an Arm enlisted 
to secure her safety, of whose watchful vigilance 
and almighty power, the foes of Zion may well be 
afraid. From the days of Abraham's early wander- 
ings when God told the nations, " Touch not mine 
anointed and do my prophets no harm ;" 1 Chr. xvi. 
20 — 22. Psa. cv. 12 — 15 ; — from the days when 
the great lawgiver lifted his rod before the king of 
Egypt, and scourged his land, and desolated his 
homes, and drowned his martial hosts in the Red 
Sea ; down to the wonders which God had wrought in 
Babylon for the protection of Daniel and his friends, 
the seed of the Jews had ever been victorious over 
their foes. Even when Israel sinned, and their God 
was angry with his rebellious people, it was a peril- 
ous commission to execute the Divine chastisements 
upon them. Learn of Assyria, and learn of Baby- 
lon, (Isa. x. 12; Jer. 1. 18,) and in later days, 
learn of imperial Home, how a nation may scourge 



THE EXALTATION OF MORDECAI. 185 

God's people for their sins ; and yet for their own 
pride or severity incur the anger of the Lord. 

While this is eminently true of the church of God 
in all ages ; true of the Jewish church before they 
rejected the Divine Messiah, and were cut off from 
the believing succession of the sons of Abraham ; 
true of the Christian church since God, by preach- 
ing the gospel to the Gentiles, has fulfilled the great 
promise of the covenant made with Abraham, " In 
thee shall all families of the earth be blessed ;" 
Gen. xii. 3 ; we believe it is also true of the scat- 
tered sons of Israel even in their present dispersion. 
That most remarkable people are scattered now in 
all the earth ; they are suffering now the judgments, 
which God denounced upon them by the lips of 
Moses three thousand years ago ; yet it is the faith 
of Christians that they are reserved for a destiny 
more remarkable than their past history ; that they 
are to be restored to the believing succession ; Rom. 
xi. 24 ; and that with the veil rent from their faces 
they shall yet recognize our Jesus as the Messiah ; 
2 Cor. iii. 16 ; and Him, whom according to one of 
their own prophets, Isa. liii. 2, they have esteemed 
as a root out of a dry ground, they shall look upon, 
according to the words of another of their prophets, 
the Jehovah whom they have pierced, and shall 
mourn. Zech. xii. 10. They have been maltreated 
above all people ; and grossly by those that bear 
the Christian name. But all such things are in di- 
rect disregard of true Christian principles. The 
16 * 



186 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

New Testament teaches us the deepest regard for 
the Jews. Much as we have received from their 
hands, we look for more. Large as the early re- 
vivals of Christianity were, we look for larger 
through Jewish instrumentality. They are not ut- 
terly cast off. God has mercy in store for them. 
Beloved for the fathers' sake, they shall yet worship 
with us ; and their restoration to the covenant of 
our God and theirs shall bless the Gentile world, 
like life from the dead. Rom. xi. 15. It is no vain 
superstition ; it is a prophetic and a historical prin- 
ciple, which we may read in all ages of the past, 
there is a final triumph for the Jew. The wise men 
about Haman have well read the lesson in the 
records of the nations. The man that begins to 
fall before a Jew, cannot find support in mortal 
power. 

The fatal words fall like a knell upon the ears of 
Haman, echoing the forebodings of his own con- 
science, and tolling the end of all his ambitious 
hopes. If Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews ! 
Full well did Haman know that he was so. This 
fatal truth was the basis of his great scheme of re- 
venge. And now busy memory flew rapidly back 
over the long records of his ancestry, to tell how 
true were these words, No success against the Jews. 
Ah ! fatal and far reaching iniquity in the sons 
of Amalek ! Fatal infatuation of wickedness in 
Haman, which made the Jewish descent of Morde- 
cai the very cause of his deliberate and wider 



THE EXALTATION OF MORDECAI. 187 

malice ! Against this reasoning, he has no plea to 
urge. His iniquities begin to come upon him ; and 
a guilty mind is proverbially a cowardly one. How 
easy a thing it is to fall ! A single slip of the foot, 
and it is done. No matter how high the sinner's 
honours ; how large his wealth ; how boundless his 
ambition ; how great his pleasures, he stands on 
slippery places ; Psa. Ixxiii. 18 ; and he should not 
think that his descent will be as gradual as his rise 
has been. That morning Haman rose with eager 
anticipations of gratifying his revenge on Morde- 
cai. He forgot one thing ; that the God of Israel 
had ever given the victory to his people ; and for- 
getting this, the stupendous madness of his iniquity 
but brought upon himself the more stupendous de- 
struction. 

But the words of the friends of Haman, which 
tell their minds of Jehovah's faithfulness to his cov- 
enant, are of far wider application. It is still true, 
that no weapon formed against Zion shall prosper. 
Isa. liv. 17. Whether they received the truth from 
history or elsewhere, God's holy word teaches it to 
us ; and the largest readings of human history will 
but confirm it. Who can count the forms of opposi- 
tion that have arrayed themselves against the church 
of the living God ? " Many a time have they 
afflicted me from my youth up, may Israel now say ; 
many a time have they afflicted me from my youth 
up, yet they have not prevailed against me." Psa. 
cxxix. 1, 2. Without, the church has been assailed 



188 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

by persecution, with the dark dungeon, the sharp 
sword, and the flaming brand ; by the learning and 
scorn of human philosophy ; and by the ever chang- 
ing and ever vigorous powers of infidelity from age 
to age ; and within, she has been undermined and 
betrayed by heresy, and superstition, and false phi- 
losophy, and cold formality. But the oldest king- 
dom on the earth, the most widely extended, the 
most actively energetic, the most prosperous at this 
very hour, the most influential, the most intelli- 
gent, and the most largely charged with the good of 
the race, is the church of Jesus Christ. Persecutors 
— even successful ones — have perished, and given 
place to others to die as soon. Sceptical delusions 
never last very long, and could never spread far 
but for the depravity of men. False religions 
have become more and more corrupt, to show most 
plainly that they are not of God. But the church 
of Christ is larger now and more influential than 
ever it was. The doctrinal views of Christians are 
more nearly alike on the most important points than 
ever. The duty of the church is better recognized 
in her relation to the world ; and much as we mourn 
that christians give not according to their ability, 
the standard of liberality is higher than ever before 
since the apostolic days. Zion stands firm. "God 
is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved." 
Psa. xlvi. 4. " Therefore will we not fear, though 
the earth be removed, and though the mount- 
ains be carried into the midst of the sea." Psa. 



THE EXALTATION OF MOKDECAI. 189 

xlvi. 2. This is our confidence, that dark appear- 
ances in the history of the church are designed to 
try our faith. We will yet believe that " the Lord 
God in the midst of her is mighty." Zeph. iii. 17. 
His arm can protect, and his truth is pledged that 
it shall. His infinite wisdom discerns the opportune 
moment when his interference will most fully bless 
his people and confound their foes. 

There is no ordinary guilt and peril in being iden- 
tified with the foes of God and Zion. This thought 
we should weigh, because we all are the friends or 
the enemies of Jesus Christ. His own plain decla- 
ration is, "He that is not with me is against me." 
Matt. xii. 30. And doubtless many a man shrinks 
back from the acknowledgment that he is a foe to 
God and to his church. The only way to prove 
yourself a friend is to come forth promptly, deci- 
dedly, and earnestly to take your place with his peo- 
ple. He will recognize you upon no less terms, 
than that you adopt the principles, and exemplify 
the holy practice of his gospel. And indeed you 
are a foe, if you are not a friend. There are prin- 
ciples involved in what Christ claims, in what he is, 
and in what he has done, from which no man can 
innocently stand aloof. If you can hear preached 
such a gospel as this, without decidedly embracing 
it ; if you can hear this Saviour made known, with- 
out warmly loving him ; if you can read the teach- ' 
ings of this law, without yielding it your holy obedi- 
ence ; if you can receive these teachings of Chris- 



190 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

tianity, without cheerfully and thankfully becoming 
a Christian, there rrfust be within you a heart at en- 
mity to God. If no obedient child can hear in care- 
lessness a father's voice, can a creature listen in in- 
difference to the Creator's voice ? a dying sinner to 
the only Saviour ? They that are not with Christ 
are against him. Unreconciled sinner, you are 
fighting now, not the good fight of faith, but the 
evil conflict of unbelief; you are fighting now 
against your soul, against the Redeemer, against 
the church of the living God. If you continue 
upon the wrong side in this most momentous warfare, 
you must meet destruction. Like Haman, who had 
a Jew to contend against, you cannot prevail. You 
fight madly against the very God of Zion. Stay 
now before it is too late for ever. "Agree with 
thine adversary quickly whilst thou art in the way 
with him." Matt. v. 25. God now makes over- 
tures of mercy to sinful souls. " We are ambassa- 
dors for Christ.' ' 2 Cor. v. 20. He exhibits to 
you the gracious terms of pardon and reconciliation. 
Let not the pleasures and deceitfulness of sin flatter 
you, till it is all too late for your salvation ; till God 
calls no more and withdraws his Spirit ; till Satan 
cares no longer to keep up the deceit and your temp- 
ters become your tormentors. Certainly you can- 
not prosper if you either openly oppose God, or ne- 
glect the great salvation he urges upon you. Until 
you flee to Jesus and enlist under his banner, you 
are in peril. Every day of your life may be the 



THE EXALTATION OF MORDECAI. 191 

last of hope and happiness ; you stand upon slip- 
pery ground, and but a little may cast you down. 
Your plans and prospects may be fair in the morn- 
ing; and before evening irreversible judgments may 
fall upon you. These thoughts are serious, because 
applicable to every sinner unreconciled to God. 
Weigh them, for the life of the soul. The only 
place of safety is the church of Christ. Every soul 
that truly loves him, bears his name, keeps his com- 
mandments, and promotes his glory, shall be safe in 
all the trials of earth and safe for eternity. But to 
neglect him is a fatal error ; to refuse his service is 
eternal death. Every sinful soul ought to regard it 
as his very highest privilege that he may know the 
name of Christ, hear his calls, believe his word, rely 
upon his promises, and find his salvation. The day 
of fire shall reveal it. 1 Cor. iv. 13. The great 
King will then command, " Those, mine enemies, 
that would not that I should reign over them, bring 
them hither and slay them before me." Luke xix. 
27. 



192 ESTHER AND IIEK TIMES. 



LECTURE IX. 

THE FALL OF HAMAN. 

Does it not seem manifestly true to every 
thoughtful mind, that nothing of all the works of 
God can afford us better evidence of his being 
and wisdom, and power, and justice, than the re- 
markable displays of his providence? This book 
of Esther, and the narrative it lays before us, seem 
wonderful beyond the frequent workings of God's 
hand, only because the truth is fairly brought before 
us ; is comprehended in a brief history ; and we 
see the actors, the designs, and the results, all at 
one glance of the eye. But a little careful and de- 
vout attention would enable us to see things as mar- 
vellous in other parts of the history of the church ; 
and indeed we may see no insignificant marvels 
even in the meaner affairs of an individual be- 
liever. God is wonderful in working ; and rich in 
resources. It is as easy to show his glory in small 
as in great matters ; and he can afford to lavish his 
bounty in what we call minor affairs. The same 
beautiful colours that deck the heavens in the bright 



THE FALL OF HAMAN. 193 

rainbow or the gorgeous sunset, he can afford to 
paint with unrivalled pencil upon the modest flower 
that hides its head in the meadow. We must not 
judge him by our weakness or our penury. The 
Creator fainteth not, neither is weary, by the multi- 
plicity of affairs which show his creative power, or re- 
ceive his providential care. We will not say that God 
is as much glorified by the meaner as by the great 
affairs of his kingdom; but we may say, that he is 
glorified as truly by minor as by greater things. You 
may stand before a large and magnificent mirror, 
and it will reflect back your image, one finished and 
perfect form. You may break that mirror into a 
thousand pieces, and each piece now will give back 
an image, not as splendid, but as perfect.* So you 
may look upon the universe of God as one complete 
and magnificent whole which only he could create, 
and which shows forth his wisdom, and power, and 
goodness ; or you may take the minutest fragment of 
this universe — a grain of sand from the ocean, or a 
single leaf from the forest, or a tiny mite from the 
swarming multitudes of animated beings — and each 
of these minute fragments of a world requires the 
power of a God for its creation, and the care of a 
God for its preservation ; and his wisdom is exhibited 
in adapting each particle composing the world to its 
own place in the world's economy. Or you may 



* CharDock. 
17 



194 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

take the vast providential affairs of the universe; 

you may see the 

Planets, and suns, and adamantine spheres, 
Wheeling unshaken through the void immense. 

You may consider the infinite wisdom and power 
that so nicely balances them all ; that directs their 
motions with precision so unerring, that men can 
calculate the very moment of a distant eclipse years 
before its occurrence ; and from considering these 
vast affairs you may turn to the minute and humbler 
things which some think beneath the notice of His 
eye, but which are as completely and fully cared 
for by this infinite God as if he had them only in 
his mind. For man places in the ground the seed 
of some tiny flower, and just as correctly as the as- 
tronomer can map out the path of the planets, can 
the gardener anticipate just when the flower, whose 
seed he has planted, will spring and bloom ; just 
what unrivalled colourings will be painted upon its 
unfolding leaves, by light — the shadow of God ; and 
to just what purposes that plant can be applied in 
the period of its maturity. Man has but to study 
in both cases the laws of God. God's finger is in the 
great and the small ; because no wisdom, no power, 
no beneficence less than infinite could devise or 
could execute any part of these plans ; and all the 
parts are so nicely adjusted to each other, and si> 
dependent upon each other, that no mortal mind 
can say what portion of all God's works could be 
spared, without damage, or perhaps destruction 



THE FALL OF HAMAN. 195 

to all the rest. In our thoughts upon creation and 
providence there is no stopping point between the 
wide extremes. On the one hand, let us deny that 
there is a God, and consider all these works and all 
these harmonies the effect of blind chance ; or on the 
other hand, let us wisely and devoutly recognize 
that God's hand is as truly apparent and as truly 
needful in small as in great affairs ; to uphold the 
worlds, or to watch a falling sparrow ; to guide the 
destinies of his church, or to care for the weakest 
believer in Jesus. 

But we arrest these reflections to proceed with 
our narrative. 

Haman and his friends have but little time for 
consultation upon this important and threatening 
change in his affairs ; and the next incident keeps 
up perhaps, for a little longer season, the deceitful 
hope for Haman that all is not yet lost. While the 
wise men are yet talking with him ; and possibly be- 
fore they had time to counsel him at all hazards to 
make his peace with Mordecai ; the chamberlains of 
the palace came to lead him to that post of unusual 
honour, at the banquet of the queen. Some sup- 
pose that Haman, in his agitation, had forgotten 
his appointment ; and must thus be reminded of it. 
But thus called before the queen, the pride of the 
favourite is again aroused ; and perhaps he partially 
forgot his mortification ; and with at least some de- 
gree of composure, he went to the palace. 

The select company are met together at the ban- 



196 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

quet of wine ; and each of the three — the guests 
Ahasuerus and Haman, and their entertainer Esther 
— is full of emotions that leave little room to think 
of the delicacies before them. We are informed 
that it was the Persian custom to serve the wine at 
the beginning of their entertainments ; and thus 
there was, upon this occasion, no long delay for the 
great business of the hour. Though Haman came 
there with a heavy heart, we have no reason to 
think that he looked for any disgrace through the 
influence of Esther ; or that he had at all identified 
the queen with the cause of the Jews. We see now 
the wisdom of Mordecai in forbidding the queen to 
make known her kindred; and up to this moment 
no thought of her people had entered the minds of 
her husband or her foe. But apart from any ap- 
prehensions arising from the queen, Haman has 
enough to destroy his enjoyment of a feast on such a 
day as that ! If he tasted the wine that was placed 
before him, it was through respect to his royal en- 
tertainer, rather than from enjoyment of the cup 
itself ; or it was to drown the remembrance of that 
bitter day in the oblivion of inebriation. " Give 
strong drink, " says the wise man, "to him that is 
ready to perish, and wine to those that be of heavy 
hearts ; let him drink and forget his poverty, and 
remember his misery no more. ,, Prov. xxxi. 6, 7. 
If Haman drank that day it was not for joy ; and 
the little company was none the brighter for his 
presence. 



THE FALL OF HAM AN. 197 

For far different reasons Esther cared but little 
for the luxuries of the banquet. Her heart too was 
burdened and heavy ; not indeed with guilt or 
shame, but with a weight of responsibility that made 
her mindful only of the important errand entrusted 
to her. An important moment of her life, hardly 
inferior to her venturing in unbidden before the 
king, had now come ; the great request for her peo- 
ple was now to be preferred ; and Esther was pain- 
fully upon the watch for the favourable moment to 
address the king. But even Ahasuerus himself is 
there in great expectation. We are told by Rollin 
that upon the king's birth-day the Persian monarchs, 
by established custom, granted the queen whatever 
she asked ; and he relates the most cruel act in the 
life of Xerxes as done at the queen's solicitation. 
We have no reason to judge that Esther's banquet 
was upon the king's birth-day. It seems rather a 
private entertainment than a public feast. But the 
king came there that day expecting something. 
The delicate address of Esther, while yet she had 
given him no intimation of her desire ; the evident 
fact that some deep secret lay with her, had awak- 
ened the monarch's curiosity, and had prepared him 
to be liberal at her request. 

Thus each heart at the banquet was fully occu- 
pied : Haman with guilt and fear ; Esther with faith 
and hope ; and Ahasuerus with curiosity and love. So ' 
the banquet of wine was rather a great state occa- 
sion than a feast. 
17* 



198 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

The anxiety of the guests, which would naturally 
embarrass Esther as she watched for her favourable 
opportunity, yet resulted in her inexpressible relief. 
For Ahasuerus too is desirous to come to the main 
point of the present interview ; and it was therefore 
not long that he delayed to ask for her petition. 
How encouraging to her burdened mind to hear now 
the renewed inquiry, " What is thy petition, queen 
Esther?" and better still the renewed assurance, 
" It shall be granted thee even to the half of the 
kingdom !" Esther- paused — we are unwilling to 
think otherwise — to lift up her heart in adoring 
thankfulness to the God of Jacob, and in devout 
petition to Him in whose hand are the hearts of 
kings, before she could trust her trembling lips to 
utter the long-kept secret of her kindred, and her 
great request for her life and theirs. 

Deep emotion is ever expressive, ever eloquent, 
and ever awakens deep feeling in others. Great 
must have been the astonishment of Ahasuerus at 
the trembling lips of his beloved queen ; at the deep 
feeling which agitated her frame; and at the amazing 
words she utters in his ears. Here is no common 
matter. He had perhaps expected from one that 
was so closely shut up within the palace ; who knew 
so little of the affairs of the empire ; and whose 
world was the world of women around her ; he had 
expected some gift for a favourite, or some enlarge- 
ment of her revenue. But he found it was a mat- 
ter of life and death ; of her life too, though she 



THE FALL OF HAMAN. 199 

was an inmate of his palace ; of the life too of her 
people. Astonishment kept the king silent, while 
Esther told the whole. "For we are sold, I and 
my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to per- 
ish ; but if we had been sold for bond-men and bond- 
women,'' I had kept silence, though even in that case 
no adequate compensation could have been made by 
the enemy for the damage done to the king and the 
kingdom. All this is a mystery to Ahasuerus. 
He sees in it some dark plot that is to penetrate 
into his very palace and tear away his queen even 
from his side. He skeins to have forgotten utter- 
ly the scheme of Haman, to which he gave a 
thoughtless consent ; and not knowing as yet the 
people of Esther, he has no aid to his memory for 
recalling the transaction. In his confidence in Ha- 
man, he had perhaps never inquired what use had 
been made of his seal. He is therefore now deeply 
agitated by the moving recital of his beautiful queen ; 
deeply affected by her tears ; in the hasty passion 
characteristic of him, he is vehemently angry, and 
is deeply resolved to revenge her wrongs. He 
hastily inquires, Who is he, and where is he, that 
durst presume in his heart to do so ? Now we see 
why Esther has planned that the adversary of the 
Jews should be present upon this occasion. His as- 
tonishment equals that of the king ; for it had never 
crossed his thoughts that the queen of Persia was 
one of the victims of his malice. Policy, if not 
right, might have stayed his arm, had he sooner 



200 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

known this important truth. Every man that dares 
to do a wicked deed should know everything, before 
he can assure his mind of safety. The truth now 
opens before Haman, like a flash of lightning, which 
reveals a precipice to the benighted traveller just 
too late to stay the destructive plunge. The trem- 
bling Agagite has no time for long reflection. At 
the king's question, Esther delivers this prompt re- 
ply, " The adversary and enemy is this wicked 
Haman !" The secret is told. The amazed mon- 
arch looks upon his favourite and reads the truth of 
the charge in his guilty faca " Then was Haman 
afraid before the king and queen." Guilt has no 
dignity ; an awakened conscience unnerves the cour- 
age of even brave men ; and a woman's voice, when 
it speaks the truth, fills the convicted adversary with 
confusion. Ahasuerus saw at a glance that his con- 
fidence had been misplaced and had been shamefully 
abused ; and his anger rises like an impetuous tor- 
rent. In the excess of his rage he rushed forth into 
the palace garden, and every new thought strength- 
ened the charge of Esther, and confirmed the proof 
of Ilaman's treacherous disposition. How strange 
it is that after we have long reposed our confidence 
in a deceitful person, have looked favourably upon 
his words and actions, and have interpreted every- 
thing in the best light; if suddenly we are unde- 
ceived and get one just glance at his real character, 
we are able in a moment to strengthen this just 
view by a thousand things unconsidered before, and 



THE FALL OF HAMAN. 201 

we change instantly our judgment of him and of 
all we have known him to do ! The change seems 
like the opening of our eyes, as if really we had 
been blind to all around us. 

Whatever may have been the thoughts of the king 
respecting Haman, they were not favourable to him ; 
the audacity of aiming at the queen's life and of 
abusing his confidence to make him a partner in the 
plot, inflamed his wrath the more he thought upon 
it ; and when he returned to the place of banquet- 
ing, the occurrences there only served yet more to 
arouse him. Haman upon other occasions had seen 
the king's wrath; had perhaps awakened it towards 
other objects ; and he easily interprets it now. " He 
saw that there was evil determined against him 
by the king." And now, at last, not with the 
spirit of a penitent, but as a criminal overtaken by 
the tardy stroke of justice, he begins to implore 
mercy. He arose and approached the queen's couch. 
The oriental manner of sitting at meat is wholly dif- 
ferent from ours. They reclined upon couches upon 
a level with the table on which the food was placed. 
So Haman fell upon the bed where Esther was. 
There is no reason to believe that there was any 
other bed than the usual couch at the table of the 
queen ; and it is in the highest degree unlikely that 
Haman had any such design as that imputed to him 
in the anger of the king. In an agony of fear he 
approached the queen ; perhaps, as is common in 
the east, he embraced her knees and plead for 



202 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

mercy. He felt himself completely in her power. 
He was desirous of assuring her that he had no de- 
signs against her life ; that he was ignorant of her 
kindred; that he was willing to employ all his influ- 
ence to avert the decree, if she would only spare 
his life. But we know not the entreaties urged by 
Haman upon Esther ; nor whether he had time, nor 
whether he had spirit enough to urge any entreaties. 
We know only that the attitude he assumed made 
matters worse in the eye of the jealous monarch, 
and hurried on his fall. 

The first words of anger from the king's lips, are 
eagerly caught up by the surrounding attendants. 
Genuine friendship too seldom exists in despotic 
courts. If Haman had been an upright minister, the 
king's wrath would have found ready executioners. 
Envy and ambition are ruling passions in the high 
places of earthly honour ; and where these dwell, 
there is but little room for an esteem that rests upon 
substantial merit. But a haughty and selfish min- 
ister, like Haman, w T ould incur the hatred as well as 
the envy of the courtiers ; and they would more 
readily join to triumph over his fall. The w T ords of 
the king are quickly interpreted by the attendants. 
" They covered Hainan's face." Among the Greeks 
and Romans they covered the faces of condemned 
malefactors; and if this be not the moaning here, it 
indicates, at least, that Haman is no longer fit to 
the king's face. The favourite lias fallen ; and his 
end rapidly approaches. The gallows which he had 



THE FALL OF HAMAN. 203 

erected for Mordecai, the Jew " who had spoken 
good for the king/' is no secret in the palace. Per- 
haps the chamberlains who had summoned Ham an 
to the banquet had seen it in the court of Haman's 
house ; and the eager-witted courtiers are ready to 
do themselves a double advantage ; by trampling 
upon the fallen favourite, and by bowing the knee 
to one whose star, they perceive, is in the ascendant. 
They knew, it may be, already the religion of Es- 
ther ; and her intercourse with Mordecai was of 
course known to some of them. Taking all things 
together, and recalling the high honour that morn- 
ing conferred upon Mordecai, they easily see the 
influence which must be produced, if the designs of 
Haman against the noble Jew are now made known. 
So Ahasuerus is informed of the gallows, presump- 
tuously erected for the king's benefactor. This new 
evidence of his audacity is immediately fatal to Ha- 
man. The angry monarch gives the order that he 
should be hanged upon that gallows. Executions 
in the east are summary. But hanging was not the 
usual mode of capital punishment. Perhaps Ha- 
man was first beheaded and then his body ignomini- 
ously exposed upon the gallows. Thus sudden was 
his doom. In the morning proud and revengeful ; 
at mid-day humbled and dejected ; in the evening 
exposed in his wicked schemes, degraded from his 
dignity, and put to a shameful death. 

But we stay here again in the narrative. And in 
resuming the thoughts already indulged touching 



204 ESTHER AXD HER TIM I 

God's providence as here set before us, let us not 
forget to learn from his case that the lessons of 
Providence are not to be hastily read. What we 
are sometimes disposed to call the indications of 
Providence may the rather be the trials of our faith 
and patience. Providence seems often to teach the 
reverse of what it really effects. When the edict 
by royal authority was proclaimed in the Persian 
empire, God seemed to give the triumph to Israel's 
foes. The storms that sometimes threaten us, may 
only threaten. We have one settled principle by 
which to judge of Providence — God's Providence 
never conflicts with God's written word. There are 
apparent conflicts ; and in the trial of our faith we 
may be like mourning Mordecai, or like trembling 
Esther. But let us keep firm our confidence in the 
word ; and these threatenings of Providence will 
work us no harm. We are certain to be wrong if 
we so interpret Providence as to distrust God's word, 
or to murmur at his dealings, or to forsake his ser- 
vice, or to become hardened in sinfulness. When 
the workings of Providence, prosperous or afflictive, 
make us love God's truth more and rely more upon 
his covenant ; when they make us feel that he alone 
can help, and drive us to fasting and prayer for Di- 
vine aid ; when they make us humble and diligent 
and dependent, then is God honoured; then are our 
souls profited. These results, we have seen, were 
produced upon Esther and the Jews. 

And may we not justly say, in the wonders of 



THE FALL OF HAMAN. 205 

God's providence— in the book before us ; or in his 
later dealings with his people ; or in the experience 
of our own lives— that we have proof of God's 
being, and power, and wisdom, and goodness, quite 
beyond the reach of any imposition ? The wonders 
of God's providence deserve to be classed high 
among the evidences of revealed religion. The 
Bible is the only volume that claims for the Supreme 
Ruler such a minute and particular superintendence 
of his works, as will suit the facts we can trace in 
the history of man, or agree with our just reason- 
ings in the case. Providence often seems a tangled 
web ; and all around appears inextricable confusion. 
Many a Haman triumphs, and many a Mordecai 
fills the streets with his bitter lamentations. Many a 
cruel edict has gone forth against the people of 
God ; and since God rules the world, it seems yet 
darker, that these have sometimes been carried into 
execution. But the end is not yet. Let the light 
of God's word explain his dark dealings in provi- 
dence. And this is certainly true, that the darker 
Providence is, the more intricate its plans, the less 
we are able to see the end ; and the longer it takes 
to effect its purposes, the stronger is the proof of 
Divine planning and Divine working when the end 
comes out right. In this book of Esther, how im- 
possible that either of the prominent characters fore- 
saw the end and laboured to bring it about ! As we 
have said before, so many actors, and scenes, and 

motives ; so many nice adjustments of times, and 

18 



206 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

purposes, and events; so many dark threatenlngs 
of evil ; so many unexpected dawnings of good, are 
things which no man can counterfeit. A history 
like this displays the finger of God as truly as the 
creation of a man or the control of the stars ; indeed 
God's highest government is his control of free, 
moral, and even sinful agents, allowing them to dis- 
play their characters, and yet doing his will. Such 
an exalted government we have shown in this book ; 
such, God ever holds over the world. 

We have good reason to believe that, if the 
pen of inspiration were commissioned to record 
God's dealings with his church and people in other 
ages, we would have many a record quite as wonder- 
ful as the book of Esther. We may call this entire 
narrative, a page torn out, almost at random, from 
the book of God's remembrance above ; and trans- 
ferred here for our instruction. God has the same 
covenant with all his people ; the same principles of 
government ; the same watchful care over them ; he 
allows their foes to rage and partially to triumph ; 
their fears to depress ; and their faith to endure 
conflicts. The world has yet its Hamans and Mor- 
decais ; its present triumphs for the ungodly ; its 
ultimate triumphs for the faithful. There is a prac- 
tical application through all this book ; and we 
should be more decided, and more prayerful, and 
more believing from the lessons we learn of Morde- 
cai and Esther. 

But the scene especially brought before us in the 



THE FALL OF HAM AX 207 

present lecture, reminds us of the justice of God's 
providence in bringing retribution upon the guilty. 
The long delay that often elapses between a man's 
sins and his punishment for them, has in all ages 
been thought a mystery of Providence. Apparent 
impunity in evil often strengthens the hands of 
wicked men, and they are encouraged to go on in 
iniquity ; but the real design of this impunity is to 
exhibit God's wisdom, and forbearance, and justice, 
in the government of rational and moral beings. 
When we carefully observe the issues of crime, we 
learn that i; the way of transgressors is hard." The 
entire difficulty and its solution are most remarkably 
summed up in the words of Solomon. ( See Eccles. 
viii. 11 — 13.) " Because sentence against an evil 
work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart 
of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. 
Though a sinner do evil an hundred times and his days 
be prolonged, . . it shall not be well with the wicked." 
In the ancient Mythology punishment was repre- 
sented as lame, intimating how slowly it pursued its 
objects, but it was remarked that it rarely failed to 
overtake its victim. So in the current proverb of com- 
mon life, u Murder will out," we have expressed the 
general mind of man in the confident expectation that 
God's justice will discover and punish sin. But the 
wisdom of Providence is seen not only in the pun- 
ishment of sin, but in the nature also of the punish- 
ment. Men often find their punishment springing 
forth from their own transgressions and partaking 



208 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

of their very nature. So the inspired writers say, 
" His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, 
and he shall be holden by the cords of his sins." 
"He made a pit and digged it, and is fallen into the 
ditch that he made." " In the net w T hich he hid 
is his own foot taken ; the Lord is known by the 
judgment w T hich he executeth ; the wicked is snared 
in the work of his own hands," We may find 
scriptural examples, and examples in the world all 
around, that the sins of men are the mirror which 
reflects the image of their punishment. If Haman 
erects a gallows for Mordecai, upon that same gal- 
lows shall he himself be hanged. The Lord does to 
him as he would do to another that is more right- 
eous than he. The wicked is snared in the work of 
his own hands. He eats the fruit of that evil tree, 
which his own hands have planted. 

Though sentence against an evil work is not ex- 
ecuted speedily, retribution shall certainly be taken 
against the most secret transgressors of God's holy 
laws. The only exceptions are made by the pro- 
clamation of pardon through the gospel of Jesus 
Christ. Let every sinner beware of the flatteries 
and hopes of impunity which allure him on, only 
until he is hopelessly entangled and until his sin is 
ripe for vengeance. A man may see no reason why 
his sin should be discovered ; or lie may flatter him- 
self with resolutions for a timely repentance. These 
wretched — these wicked hopes have deceived thou- 
sands, and yet thousands more will go on, to dis- 



THE FALL OF HAMAN. 209 

cover in their unhappy experience that God is just ; 
and to eat the fruit of their own way and to be filled 
with their own devices. 

As the scenes of this book pass before us, it is not 
a hard thing for us to decide where our sympathies 
lie, and to which party we wish success. We may in- 
deed feel emotions of pity even at the fate of Haman, 
though we recognize the justice of it, and rejoice at 
the deliverance of the Jews. And we shrink back 
from companionship with Haman, not because he 
failed in his plot and perished ignominiously. It 
ought to be because we abhor the principles of a 
man who could so deliberately plot the indiscrimin- 
ate massacre of a whole people ; because we detest 
his wickedness. Yet let us not lose sight of the 
truth, that while men die and generations pass away, 
principles, both of good and evil, are permanent 
from age to age. The links which connect us with 
Mordecai and Esther are the links of a common hu- 
manity, and, we trust, a common faith, and a com- 
mon salvation. Haman but represents the principles 
which actuate those that stand aloof from the church 
of Grod, or oppose the progress of the church. 
The church was precious then, and is equally pre- 
cious now ; if we sympathize with her struggles as 
recorded in ancient time, we should join now to aid 
her in her conflicts with an ungodly world ; if we 
admire the wisdom and piety, the faith and resolu- 
tion of Esther and Mordecai, we should endeavour 
now to follow the footsteps of their faith. Let us 
18 * 



210 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

justly consider that a spurious sympathy for Zion 
"which weeps over her past troubles and takes no in- 
terest in her present trials ; and our acquaintance 
with her principles and duties will but condemn our- 
selves, unless we adopt her principles and exemplify 
them by our practice. These things that were writ- 
ten before-time, were written for our learning. Nor 
is it within our pow r er to decide that the times in 
which we live are of less interest than those in which 
Mordecai and Esther lived ; nor that the transac- 
tions of our age are less important; nor that less 
dangerous evils threaten us. Perhaps no generation 
of men can ever understand the value to the world 
of the current events in their own age. 

But one thing we may certainly know. Upon 
the principles involved in this sacred volume, one 
matter of infinite personal importance to each of us 
is to be settled in the times in which we live, and 
how soon for each one of us, it is impossible to know. 
It is to be decided whether your soul shall be saved 
or lost. And the day of honour to every friend of 
God may be as unexpected as Mordecai's advance- 
ment ; and the day of shame to every unrepenting 
soul, as little anticipated as the day of Hainan's 
fall. God gives sinful men warnings enough, with- 
out telling them when he will call them to judgment. 

The principles of the church of God are the most 
ennobling that can be adopted by the mind of man ; 
and only within her doors can safety be found for 
sinful souls. Those that have made a covenant with 



THE FALL OF HAM AN. 211 

God by sacrifice shall be gathered for safety in the 
great day of accounts. I may not forbear to re- 
mind you that some of you have never listened to 
the warnings God has given you. Divine vengeance 
against transgressors seems to sleep. But God in 
justice marks every rebel against his law, and every 
neglecter of the gospel. He will become weary of 
forbearance, when men are perverse in evil ; and 
those who have enjoyed his most distinguishing fa- 
vours may fear the earliest grieving of his grace. 
" Turn ye to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope, 
even to-day." Zech. ix. 12. Haman stood up to 
make request for his life ; but it was too late ! The 
king's wrath was kindled. Have we no express 
warning of similar danger ? " Kiss the Son lest he 
be angry and ye perish from the way, when his 
wrath is kindled but a little." Psa. ii. 12. 



212 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 



LECTURE X. 

THE DECREE REVERSED. 

The work of Esther to secure the deliverance of 
her people is not yet fully accomplished ; though she 
has secured the royal favour, and though the enemy 
of the Jews has perished. According to a common 
custom in eastern lands, the wealth of a state 
criminal is confiscated ; and either is seized by the 
king, or transferred to some zealous subject as the 
reward of his loyal service. Doubtless such a rule 
instigated the cupidity of many to desire the fall of 
the rich, that they might secure the spoils ; and so 
dangerous and unjust is the temptation, that the 
Constitution of the United States wisely forbids 
such punishments as shall affect the family of the 
criminal after his death. The lands, wealth, and 
honours of Hainan, the riches which he had heaped 
up not knowing who should gather them — are passed 
over to Esther, and she placed her cousin Mordecai 
over the house of their foe. Judging from the 
amount Ilaman had previously offered to pay into 
the king's treasury, his wealth was very great ; it 



THE DECREE REVERSED. 213 

had been his pride ; he was willing to spend it freely for 
the destruction of his hereditary foes; but now the wise 
is taken in his own craftiness, and his enemies use 
his wealth against his house ! We may trace in this 
the retributions of Providence. 

Esther now takes occasion to make known to the 
king the relationship existing between her and 
Mordecai. Humanly speaking, she had run a great 
risk in concealing this so long ; especially at a time 
when Haman was plotting with all his power for 
his destruction. Now that she informs the monarch 
of Mordecai, and doubtless recounts his excellencies 
with all the warm affection of a beloved daughter, 
her influence secures the high promotion of the 
worthy Jew. " The king took off his ring, which 
he had taken from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai." 

This was the customary mark of exaltation to a 
place of dignity next to the monarch. So when 
Joseph was made governor over all the land of 
Egypt, and only in the throne was the king greater 
than he, we are told, " Pharaoh took off his ring 
from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand." 
We have no just reason to decide that upon the part 
of Ahasuerus this was a rash and unconsidered 
movement. Truly in the realm of Persia there were 
special reasons for entrusting so great power only to 
a tried and faithful man. Not only were the in- 
terests involved immense ; but laws that claimed to ' 
be unalterable should be made with great caution 
and wisdom. And Ahasuerus has just had experi- 



214 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

ence in his counsels of a reckless and dangerous 
minister, and should now be doubly careful. But 
Mordecai was a tried and faithful man. He had 
saved the king's life ; the queen had long experience 
of his virtues ; and the prudence and modesty and 
wisdom of his course are now recognized ; and the 
monarch is justified in reposing this high confidence 
in this excellent man. What may a day bring forth ! 
Yesterday the busy workmen erected a scaffold for 
Mordecai's execution ; to-day the gallows has its 
victim ; but the seed of the Jews has triumphed, 
and Mordecai is the prime minister of Persia. 

But the work of Esther is not yet fully done. 
Haman is dead ; Mordecai is honoured ; her kindred 
is made known ; and the Jews receive a new influ- 
ence from the friends they have in the court. But 
so far as the Persian law is concerned, that people 
is yet doomed to destruction. The day is fixed ; 
the decree has been published throughout the 
empire ; and the changes that have taken place in 
the palace are not enough to secure the Jews. 
Their hereditary enemies, the Amalckites, are rather 
enraged the more, than subdued by the fate of 
Haman ; the motives of cupidity and malice and 
revenge are too strong when they can be indulged 
under cover of a decree that cannot be repealed ; and 
Esther fears, justly as the sequel shows, that the 
royal favour is too feeble a protection for her people. 
Some means must yet be used to make the victory com- 



THE DECREE REVERSED. 215 

plete, and to include the brethren in all the provinces 
within the great deliverance. 

Even Esther and Mordeeai are scarcely safe, since 
the law authorized their slaughter ; but, supposing 
that no one would venture to attack them, their anx- 
ieties are enlisted in behalf of their nation. It 
seems right that the repeal of the decree, or mea- 
sures amounting to that result, should be the first 
care of Mordeeai, now entrusted with the king's 
seal ; or at least that Esther and Mordeeai should 
jointly petition Ahasuerus to that end. But as 
Esther has begun the work, let her carry it through. 
So she must again apply to the king. We are not 
told that her application was made on that same 
memorable day. It is enough to suppose, as we 
may, from the queen's deep interest in the matter, 
that no long delay supervened. Esther comes 
again unbidden before the king ; but it is not so 
trying an approach as at first. Before, she knew 
not but that the king's apparent coldness for thirty 
days was proof of estrangement ; but that her na- 
tion was known and herself proscribed ; her coming 
then was an act of noble daring, but of trembling 
faith. Xow there was the same peril, should the 
king refuse to hold forth the golden sceptre : but 
she is more hopeful of gaining her end. She is en- 
couraged by her former experience, by a knowledge 
of her husband's love, by the favours he has already 
bestowed, and by her faith in Jehovah's covenant. 
Yet the approach is not without its fears. Esther 



216 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

does not regard it as a matter of course that she 
should secure her desire. She knows not that the 
king will do more than save herself and MordecaL 
There is a difficulty in the way. He might wish to 
go further ; but the laws of the realm are unalter- 
able. How is Ahasuerus to repair the mischief of 
Haman ? The queen therefore, in this second visit 
to the king's chamber of audience, shows more deep 
emotion than at first. She fell down at his feet and 
with tears besought him to put away the mischief 
from her people. 

Let us consider this new position of queen Esther 
as of deep interest to us ; as affording us new in- 
struction in our duty. She now comes rather to 
plead for others than for herself ; and her interces- 
sions afford us a model of the interest and earnest- 
ness that should characterize our intercessory suppli- 
cations at the throne of a greater and a more gracious 
King, whose name is blessed for ever! What judg- 
ment would we have formed of Esther in the palace, 
if in the first place she had thought herself safe, and 
made no efforts to overthrow the schemes of Haman ; 
or if now she stayed her exertions because Haman 
was slain and Mordecai was honoured and she her- 
self was beloved ? What would we care for a faith 
that had merely the desperate energy to approach 
the king, when her own life was in danger, and 
which has now no deep anxieties — no ventures to 
make for her brethren yet in peril, since she regards 
her own safety as secured? Think seriously upon 



THE DECREE REVERSED. 217 

the question — what would you think of Esther's 
piety in such a case ? — before you frame an answer to 
it. For it involves an important principle, which 
we all should ponder ; and which applies, not only 
to the queen of Persia, but to every professing 
Christian. We must give up our esteem for Esther 
and regard her as a selfish and heartless being, if, 
because she is safe herself, she carelessly neglects 
the interests of her people, yet subject to that in- 
flexible decree. It must shake our confidence in 
her faith, as founded in piety or prompted by God's 
Holy Spirit, or resting truly upon the covenant of 
Abraham, if we cannot discern that faith working 
by love towards her covenant brethren as well as 
towards her covenant God ; if we cannot see that it 
purifies her heart from selfish passions. Say I these 
things as a man, or says not the unfailing word of 
God the same things also? "For," it is written, 
" he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, 
how can he love God whom he hath not seen ?" 
1 John iv. 20. 

But if Esther may not make the king's palace 
her sanctuary, and the favour of the king her pro- 
tection from the persecutor's sword, what judgment 
ar^ we to form of that professing Christian, who has 
fled to the church of God as a safe asylum for his 
deathless soul ; who takes up his abode there with 
thankful reflections, that the time of his deepest 
anxieties is past ; and who yet has no new earnest 

errands to the throne of grace on behalf of breth- 
19 



218 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

ren who are afar off from Christ, and who are ex- 
posed to the just sentence of God's violated law? 
There was a time in the history of this professed 
lover of Jesus, when his own sins were set in array- 
before him ; when he was in distress as he thought 
of the anger of an offended God ; when he drew 
near to the throne of grace, and with many fears, 
and with deep earnestness, besought the pardon of 
his sins. Then perhaps he was willing to promise 
anything ; willing to surrender everything for the 
feeblest ray of hope upon his troubled path. He 
came to the throne of grace to ask for pardon and 
salvation, like the first approach of the Persian 
queen who came with deep consideration and earn- 
est fasting. The trembling sinner indulged the 
hope of pardon ; his fears and anxieties for sin — 
perhaps gradually, perhaps suddenly — vanished ; and 
because of new desires, and purposes, and affections, 
he was led to believe that his guilt was washed away 
in the blood of Calvary. Now he is safe. The 
storm is past ; and the covenant rainbow smiles 
upon him. God is reconciled ; his iniquities are no 
more remembered; his hopes are fixed on an eternal 
home. These hopes are precious ; and better, and 
surer things than we have ever thought, are true for 
every penitent soul that has ever fled to Christ and 
received, through his atoning blood, the pardon of 
his sins. tfc There is therefore now no condemnation 
to them that arc in Christ Jesus." Rom. viii. 1. 
The truly pious soul is perfectly safe for time and 



THE DECREE REVERSED. 219 

for eternity. "Who," says an inspired writer, 
"shall separate us from the love of Christ?" Rom. 
viii. 35. And his triumphant reply is, that there 
are no posssible means by which Christ and his peo- 
ple can be separated. 

His honour is engaged to save 

The meanest of his sheep ; 
All that his heavenly Father gave, 

His hands securely keep. 

The Christian is safe. For him the hand- writing 
that was against us, is destroyed and taken away. 
The greatest question for any man is this, Have I 
truly been washed in the pardoning blood of the 
dying Redeemer ? The most momentous inquiry of 
human life relates to a personal and saving interest 
in Jesus Christ ; and no man should be contented 
with answering it once for all at any single period 
of life, even upon what appears to him the clearest 
and most unexceptionable testimony. It is a great 
fallacy to suppose that a repeated and intelligent 
inquiring into the grounds of his Christian hope is 
any evidence of his distrust of Divine teachings. A 
true hope of our renewal should be only the stronger 
for our frequent and serious inquiries into its founda- 
tions ; and indeed such is the nature of a true hope, 
that he who never inquires thus may doubt if his is 
genuine. If any man is truly pious, his reasons for 
knowing it, should be better and plainer with every 
year of life ; and the only satisfactory evidences are 



220 ESTHER AND HER TIMB& 

found in the workings of God's Spirit in the mind. 
We trace his workings by effects which he only 
can produce. The Spirit of God impresses upon 
the mind effects worthy of his holiness. " If any 
man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of 
his." 

It pertains especially to our present reflections 
to remark that if any man has taken refuge in the 
church of Christ, and is satisfied there w T ith his own 
salvation secured ; if the thought of personal safety 
relaxes his efforts to be holy and to do good to 
others; such an influence exerted upon him shows 
plainly that his " heart is not right in the sight of 
God/' and that he has "neither part nor lot in the 
matter." Christ calls no man into his church to be 
content that the mountains of Divine protection 
rise around Jerusalem, and to be negligent of the 
very duties for which the church itself is established. 
If a man feels not for the wants of others, certainly 
the Spirit of God dwells not in his heart. An un- 
feeling heart for the salvation of others, never felt 
its own need truly, nor penitently mourned over its 
own sinfulness. Would we think it cold and heart- 
less selfishness in Esther, had she been happy in the 
palace, neglectful of her own kindred, and careless of 
their continued exposure to that stern decree ? Yet it 
is infinitely worse, if the Christian does not bow, with 
earnest supplications and with many tears, before 
the throne of God's mercy, mindful of perishing 
brethren around him. Here arc causes for anxiety 



THE DECREE REVERSED. 221 

and solicitude far beyond the solicitude of Esther. 
If we have really the spirit of the Christian profes- 
sion, let us look here upon the Persian queen and 
copy the interest she feels in rescuing her devoted 
brethren. How can I endure to see the evil that 
shall come unto my people ? Or how can I endure 
to see the destruction of my kindred ? — are ques- 
tions of solemn import to us, and they should deeply 
burden every pious mind. A professing christian, not 
solicitous for the salvation of souls, well may doubt 
his own safety. Especially in the New Testament 
age of the church, and under the teachings of the 
Saviour's great commission, the best evidence of piety 
is a missionary spirit. The salvation of our kindred 
should call forth our earnest prayers ; and the more 
we have of the spirit of the gospel, the more truly will 
we feel ourselves debtors to the Jew and the Greek, 
to the wise and the unwise. 

But leaving these thoughts to your prayerful con- 
sideration, we return to the narrative. The pious 
queen is not satisfied with saving her own life and ex- 
alting her kinsman. She desires to use all the influ- 
ence she has gained, to further her efforts for the 
rescue of her people. Her earnestness and tears 
are again rewarded by the stretching forth of the 
golden sceptre ; and she pleads that the letters sent 
forth by Haman may be reversed. But the case 
is not without its difficulty. The folly of the Per- ■ 
sian rule that forbade any law to be altered, placed 
a barrier in the way. It seems a very strange thing 
19* 



222 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

that weak and foolish man who must meet with so 
many clear proofs of his liability to error, through 
ignorance, misconception, and passion, should so 
much covet a reputation for infallible wisdom ! It 
is most remarkable that the great Apostasy that 
sits in the temple of God claiming, among other Di- 
vine prerogatives, this of unchanging infallibility, 
should command the blind submission of so many 
souls. Does it not seem that the folly in the hearts 
of men to claim such infallibility, is equalled by the 
folly that admits the claim ? But no evidence avails 
with many, to cure such vanity. " Though thou 
shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a 
pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from 
him.'' Though claiming infallibility, and having this 
claim allowed by the subjects of an empire wider 
and more populous than that of Persia, the apostate 
church has never been the same in faith and prac- 
tice for any two ages — except as she has possessed 
the same spirit of pride, cruelty, and domination. 
It is only after the lapse of eighteen centuries that 
she has defined and declared as an article of faitli a 
matter so important as the Immaculate Conception 
of the Virgin Mary ; her highest prelates cannot 
foretell what new articles of faith she may yet add to 
her creed, nor of what mortal sin they may be 
guilty in denying what may yet rank among essen- 
tial dogmas ; and yet she claims unchangeableness and 
infallibility ; and, her own changes to the contrary 



THE DECREE REVERSED. 223 

notwithstanding, her followers must believe her 
claim. 

In the realm of Persia a long experience must 
have shown repeatedly the folly and impolicy of 
various decrees ; and various occasions must have 
forced upon the government some expedient to cor- 
rect the folly of that fundamental law that no de- 
cree could be repealed. So when Esther brought 
her request before Ahasuerus, and he was inclined 
to grant it, the case does not seem to have presented 
so great difficulty as might at first be apprehended. 
Experience had perhaps already suggested an expe- 
dient to evade the law ; and yet the one here 
adopted, was so mischievous and so dangerous to the 
peace of the kingdom that it was wholly unsuitable 
to a case like this. It was here devised to set the 
kingdom at war with itself; to array tribe against 
tribe, interest against interest, and fierce passions 
against each other. The enemies of the Jews ac- 
cording to the law had full power to attack them ; 
and this power could not legally be taken from 
them. It was therefore proposed to make it lawful 
for the Jews to resist, and even to spoil their assail- 
ants ; and it was thought that their safety might be 
secured, if the influence and power of the govern- 
ment were thrown in their favour. It argues indeed 
very little for Persian wisdom and justice, and 
seems a very expensive way of maintaining Persian 
consistency. This we will more fully see hereafter. 
But it seems the only expedient that can save the 



224 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

Jews ; and yet preserve the rule of the kingdom. 
And perhaps Ahasuerus and his counsellors had but 
little idea of the fierce strife between Amalek and 
Israel; had but little thought that the struggle 
would be so severe as it afterwards proved; and 
thought the matter easily settled by a counter-decree. 
Mordecai knew more perhaps than he could per- 
suade the king to believe ; and his wisdom devised 
the effectual means for the safety of his people, which 
we will consider in a further lecture. 

A new decree was issued by the king's command, 
and sent forth sealed with his seal, granting 
permission to the Jews to defend themselves, and 
to kill, and spoil their enemies, upon the same 
day appointed by the former decree for their ex- 
termination. Time yet remains to send the pro- 
clamation throughout the empire, for the important 
day is yet distant nine months ; but there were also 
reasons for haste. To relieve the Jews from their 
anxiety ; to prevent many from sacrificing or even 
from abandoning their property, and from hastening 
out of the empire ; to prevent the increase and the 
insolence of their foes, it was well to publish the 
decree as soon as possible. To form some idea of 
the influence which such a decree might have had 
on the empire within that year, if no counter influ- 
ence had been used, it may suffice to say that 
France, by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 
lost half a million of the most industrious and 
thriving of her people; and this though every 



THE DECREE REVERSED. 225 

cruelty of imprisonment and death was used to 
stop the tide of emigration. 

That was not a day of railroad speed or of tele- 
graphic communications, but the riders went forth 
upon their swiftest beasts. Among these are men- 
tioned young dromedaries. Such of these animals 
as are trained for running are very remarkable, not 
only for their speed, but for their endurance ; and 
they are especially useful in passing over the im- 
mense sandy deserts which are found within the 
limits of the empire of Ahasuerus. Theirs was a 
different errand from that of Haman; and if re- 
venge is swiftfooted, love is light of heart. The 
couriers of Mordecai went forth in joyful haste. 
Messengers of good tidings, they were everywhere 
received with joy. Shushan, perplexed before, is 
especially mentioned as joyful now. Perhaps Mor- 
decai was well known there, and his promotion gave 
joy. But in every place the Jews were made glad; 
their friends waited upon them with cheerful con- 
gratulations ; and they gave thanks to their coven- 
ant God for the great deliverance he had wrought 
for them. 

In connection with this new proclamation, we have 
this interesting record, " Many of the people of the 
land became Jews because the fear of the Jews fell 
upon them." If we may regard this, as the brief re- 
cord of a revival of religion in the ancient days of the 
church of Grod, it is well worthy of our regard. And 
we believe it is one of the scenes of religious interest 



226 ESTHER AND HER TIME-. 

which God has been wont to grant to Zion in all 
ages and in every land. There is indeed a very wide 
difference between the Old and the New Dispensa- 
tions of the church in respect to efforts for the 
conversion of souls without. The Christian Dispen- 
sation of the church is essentially evangelistic and 
missionary ; she is commanded to go forth and dis- 
ciple the nations ; the promised presence and blessing 
of the Lord can be looked for only as she is faithful 
to this great trust ; and experience proves that the 
church prospers most, within and without, when she 
is most earnest in her aggressions. The Christian 
church is a missionary church ; every Christian is a 
missionary ; and should feel himself a debtor to the 
Jew and to the Greek. But the Jewish church had 
no such general commission. You search in vain 
from Moses to Malachi for a missionary prophet, 
except as they stood afar off to denounce the judg- 
ments of God upon the sins of the gentile nations, 
and as upon one occasion an unwilling Jonah was 
sent in person to declare God's word to Nineveh. 
Widely different was their dispensation from ours ; 
and the influence of it upon the Jews was to make 
them bigoted and exclusive ; careless of extending 
their privileges to other nations ; and too often 
jealous that gentiles should come to partake of the 
blessings of their covenant. But though that was 
not a missionary age of the church, it was still by 
a perversion of Divine teachings that the Jews re- 
fused to feel for the darkness of the heathen. If 



THE DECREE REVERSED. 227 

not commissioned as we are to preach the gospel 
freely, yet their prophets plainly predicted that in 
coming days the earth should glorify the Lord, and 
all the kingdoms of the nations serve him ; the 
native spirit of true piety in every age, would gladly 
welcome even the stranger who came to knock for 
Divine mercy at the door of the great temple of 
revealed truth ; express directions were given in 
the law of Moses for the reception of proselytes ; 
and perhaps there never was an age without its 
serious inquirers, groping their way from the gloom 
of the Egypt all around into the blessed light of 
Divine truth that shinecl upon the Goshen where 
Israel dwelt. Many a heart was made glad by such 
a welcome as an Israelitish noble gave to a timid 
daughter of Moab : " The Lord recompense thy 
work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord 
God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to 
trust." Ruth ii. 12. 

We explain the peculiar nature of the Jewish 
church, by preferring to call it conservative rather 
than exclusive ; and by referring to the entire 
Divine plan for the setting up of Christ's kingdom 
in all the world. It is a most remarkable truth — 
one which men have proved themselves too ready 
to overlook, yet one of which no intelligent Chris- 
tian should ever lose sight — that the church of 
God was originally preached to all men ; that twice 
at least, immediately after the fall and immediately 
after the deluge, it was universal ; that the establish- 



228 ESTIIEU AKD ITER TIME?. 

rnent of the Jewish church was avowedly a conser- 
vative expedient, Gal. iii. 19, which lasted only for 
one third of the history of man up to this date ; and 
that even in its establishment a blessing for all 
nations was pledged. Gen. xii. 3. In the midst of 
general corruption, God separated a chosen people, 
to maintain his church and to perpetuate the doc- 
trines of true piety ; but the Jewish Commonwealth 
was to stand only until the " fulness of the time" had 
come ; and when by a long experiment it was shown 
that the "world by wisdom knew not God," and 
when all things were ready for the coming of 
Christ, the blessing upon the gentiles, forfeited 
through their sin, was again to be restored through 
Abraham, and the gospel preached to all the world. 
Thus the original and the ultimate designs of the 
church were the same; and God's great plan of 
preaching the gospel to the world, seems ever to have 
been kept in view in providential arrangements. 
Especially by two remarkable means was salvation 
set before the nations even before the coming of 
Christ. First, the Holy Land, where God's chosen 
people dwelt, was so situated as to place the truth 
before the minds of the principal nations of the earth 
as then populated. Let any one notice the land 
of Palestine, and see how it stands, like a light house 
at the end of the Mediterranean Sea, surrounded by 
the great Empires of the old world, Cartilage, Egypt, 
Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Pome. The 
nations around could scarcely help but learn much 



THE DECREE REVERSED. 229 

of Jehovah's character and claims from this chosen 
central people. We believe that many important 
truths did go forth among the nations, and that many 
proselytes were made who forsook paganism to wor- 
ship Jehovah. Especially we believe that the reigns 
of David and Solomon were blessed with revivals of 
religion which spread the influence of salvation 
among the gentiles, and the number of proselytes was 
very large that were incorporated with the Jewish 
people. Religion was purest and most flourishing 
then among the Jews themselves, and it had the 
most influence to attract the attention of the gentiles. 
But the seco?id means divinely used to proclaim 
the gospel to the world during the time of the old 
economy, was the wide dispersion of the Jews 
themselves. As the time for Messiah's coming drew 
near, the influences preparatory to his coming were 
more widely spread and decided. It is difficult to 
know how far abroad the Jews were scattered. 
Haman told the king that they were scattered 
through all the provinces of the Persian empire. 
But we know they were even more widely dispersed 
than this. More influence was exerted upon the 
world by the Jews of Alexandria in Egypt, than 
even by their brethren in Babylonia. They held a 
position of commanding influence, and they used 
the Greek language, into which they translated the 
Old Testament, and in which the New Testament 
was afterwards written. From the Acts of the 
Apostles we learn that many colonies of the Jews 
20 



230 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

were scattered in Europe ; while even Ethiopia on 
the South and China on the East received the dis- 
persed exiles. Thus the principles of true religion 
were brought into contact with paganism almost all 
over the world before the coming of Christ ; and 
while these scattered Jews prepared the way for the 
gospel, and became its preachers after the day of 
Pentecost, we can hardly doubt that much direct 
and immediate influence was exerted for the conver- 
sion and salvation of many heathen-born men. Dur- 
ing the five hundred years preceding Christ's coming, 
many gentiles learned to know the God of Jacob, 
and to rejoice in his covenant ; and this period may 
be called the dawning twilight before the rising of 
the Sun of Righteousness. 

Many of the people of Persia became Jews. 
Thus even Hainan's malice is overruled for good. 
God causes the wrath of man to praise him. So 
Paul cheerfully writes from prison that God was 
doing good by his bonds. In God's orderings for 
the church, prosperity and trouble have each a pur- 
pose to serve. If Zion was always prosperous, she 
would gather too many members of doubtful piety ; 
if she was always enduring persecution, many of 
weak but genuine piety would be deterred from 
their duty, and her opportunities would be less favour- 
able to influence others. The time of largest in- 
crease is a time of peace and rest. Acts ix. 31« 

Many of the people of the land became Jews. 
Can we help but be reminded by this of our Lord's 



THE DECREE REVERSED. 231 

solemn warning, that many shall come from the east, 
and from the west, and from the north, and from 
the south, and shall sit down with Abraham, and 
Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God, but the 
children of the kingdom shall be cast out ? If 
Persians became Jews, surely the Jews should have 
increased in piety. And we have a lesson to learn : 
if men born in paganism became Jews, is it not rea- 
sonable that those in our times who have been born 
in the bosom of the Christian church should be- 
come Christians ? Yet it is to be feared that many 
of the heathen now press into the kingdom before 
those that have enjoyed the full privileges of in- 
struction in the church. Many of the Persians 
perhaps were influenced by improper motives — 
through fear of the Jews it is said. Mordecai and 
Esther now possessed great influence. We do not 
like improper motives even for good things. But 
surely there are good motives enough that should 
press upon every sinful soul to bid him fly to Christ. 
The victory would be half gained, if men would re- 
fuse to be influenced by improper motives which 
keep them away from the service of God. And 
the motives to become a Christian, good and proper, 
are almost infinitely diversified. Men may truly 
seek for salvation who justly tremble in view of 
God's wrath against the guilty; and many are 
sweetly drawn by the attractions of Jesus and his 
dying love. It is unreasonable for men to object to 
any motives, while yet they refuse to be influenced 



232 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

by those that are the most opposite in nature and 
tendency.* And while any just motive may avail to 
lead an humble soul to repentance and life everlast- 
ing, how righteous is their doom who resist all the 
motives urged upon them by God's word, his provi- 
dence, and his servants ; and who with seared con- 
sciences and hardened hearts, rush to perdition in 
spite of mercy and judgment ! 

* Matt. xi. 16-19. 



THE DAY OF CONFLICT. 233 



LECTURE XL 

. THE DAY OF CONFLICT. 

The twelfth month, that is the month Adar, and 
the thirteenth day of the same, was a day of re- 
markable things in the realm of Persia, in the 
twelfth year of the reign of king Ahasuerus, 
Mordecai the Jew being his prime minister. That 
day was fixed by two edicts of royal authority, both 
equally in force, as a day of massacre and a day of 
resistance throughout the empire. The enemies of 
the Jews — so ran the unalterable law, might attack, 
kill, abuse, or plunder that widely scattered race ; 
and on the contrary, the Jews, with the equal ap- 
proval of a royal law, might not only offer resistance, 
but slay their assailants and take their spoil. It 
would have been better and wiser far, if the second 
decree had merely repealed the first ; but the pre- 
posterous folly, we have before remarked upon, that 
allowed no alteration of a Persian statute, compels 
the king to set the kingdom at war with itself, and 
to sanction the greatest outrages under the name of 
law. It could not reasonably be expected, in any 
20* 



234 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

nation, in any age, or under the most favourable 
circumstances that the two decrees would neutralize 
each other; much less could it be anticipated, as 
matters then stood in Persia, that that eventful 
day would pass off quietly. Such is the iniquity of 
man, that if in any country upon the globe, a day 
was appointed upon which crimes might be com- 
mitted with no other harm to the perpetrators than 
that which they received in attempting the crimes, 
thousands of bold and reckless men would start up, 
and that day would be marked by outrages of the 
most destructive character. The march of an in- 
vading army would be a trifle, in comparison with 
such a rising of neighbour against neighbour. Civ- 
ilization would do little to mitigate its horrors, if in- 
deed it did not aggravate them by teaching desper- 
ate men the more complete arts of spoliation. One 
such day as that in this fair land, would destroy 
more property, cost more lives, and bring more 
wretchedness, than long years of foreign war. 
The most thoughtful and intelligent man among us 
has perhaps but a faint conception of the large and 
constant protection we find in our persons, our pro- 
perty, and our families, from the ever present ma- 
jesty of the civil law. And such a day as that 
would be worse than anarchy. Anarchy is to be 
without government and without law. The contra- 
dictory decrees legalized violence throughout the 
empire. Like the modern enactments for the de- 
structive sale of spirituous liquors, it was the gov- 



THE DAY OF CONFLICT. 235 

ernment formally legalizing schemes of mischief 
against the citizens whom the government should 
protect. That her own sons were to do the wrong, 
is no palliation of the wicked and suicidal offence. 
The edict of Haman was in reality a complete out- 
lawry of the Jewish people for that one remark- 
able day ; it legalized religious bigotry and every 
vile passion of the heart of man ; and though per- 
haps the edict of Mordecai was the best remedy 
that could be found in the circumstances, yet un- 
questionably it enlarged the circle of lawless action, 
and put in jeopardy the lives and property of every 
family in the nation. If, on the one hand, among 
the adherents of Hainan's party, there were daring 
and desperate men, who had malice or revenge to 
gratify, or whose cupidity was excited by the wealth 
of an industrious and thriving Jewish neighbour, 
they would seek by strength or cunning to effect 
their purposes. Or if, on the other hand, any per- 
sons, siding with Mordecai's party, really Jews or 
pretending to be such, had similar designs against 
any man or family in the whole realm of Persia, it 
would be no hard thing for him to feign that his 
enemies were the assailants ; and upon such a law- 
less day as that, it might be impossible to bring the 
vilest wretches of either party to justice. When 
we look through the world and see that some of the 
most abandoned wretches bear the Christian name, 
not because they are truly pious, or exhibit any- 
thing of the spirit of Christ, but that they make a 



236 ESTIIER AND HER TIMES. 

cloak of religion for wicked purposes, or that they 
have been born in lands where the gospel of Christ 
is preached, we need not wonder if many men de- 
void of principle were included in the multitudes of 
the Persian empire, who passed under the general 
name of Jews. And when we reflect that possibly 
many of the professed converts to the Jewish faith, be- 
came so only for the purpose of gratifying their own 
bad passions upon that eventful day, w T e may easily 
judge that the decree of Mordecai, though no doubt 
it saved much shedding of blood, did by no means 
allay the anxiety of the people at large. It filled 
the empire with fear. It awakened the most serious 
anticipations, not now in Jewish families alone, but 
in every household. For lawlessness can never be 
confined, like a quiet river, within prescribed boun- 
daries ; but like a swelling flood, it spreads wide its 
scenes of ruin and devastation through all its course. 
No man could judge how far the passions of either 
party would carry them. The judicious measures 
adopted by Mordecai could do but little to allay the 
anxiety of the empire ; and the people everywhere 
anticipated and prepared for, a strange day of civil 
war. 

When the important day drew on, several matters 
greatly favoured the success of the Jews. Their 
first and most obvious advantage was, that they had 
the favour and power of the government exerted on 
their behalf. Doubtless the nine months interven- 
ing between Hainan's fall and this eventful day, 



THE DAY OF CONFLICT. 237 

Mordecai wisely employed in strengthening the 
Jewish interests ; perhaps in displacing hostile 
officers throughout the empire and promoting his 
friends. So we are informed that the rulers and 
the lieutenants, and the officers helped the Jews. 
The guards of the royal garrisons were airayed for 
their defence ; and all who desired the royal favour 
or feared the power of the government, would refrain 
from attacking the friends of the queen. 

But the wisdom of Mordecai secured also another 
important advantage to his people. By his advice 
the Jews did not remain each man in his own house 
and allow themselves to be beaten in detail; but 
they gathered together in numerous defensive bands. 
This arrangement involved perhaps the loss of some 
property, left unprotected ; but it secured other 
advantages. It made them more formidable, and 
saved many Jewish lives. And doubtless it brought 
greater safety to the Persians, and freed the Jews 
from the responsibility rising from the lawless and 
irregular conduct of some that professed to be their 
friends. Mordecai could not prevent men from 
assuming the name of Jews ; but these measures were 
wise to prevent the cause of religion from being 
dishonoured, by the wicked conduct of those who 
said they were Jews but were not. Those that were 
known to be Jews were organized in bands ; officers 
were appointed over them ; and their defence was a 
matter not of revenge or cupidity but of upright 
principle. These wise arrangements show the dis- 



238 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

position in Mordecai to do all he could to counteract 
the evil plotted by Hainan. For all the blood shed 
that day the wicked Agagite was responsible. What 
serious thoughts are these ; that evil is so easy to 
work, so hard to stay; that a man's wickedness may 
bring forth evil fruits, not only months, but even 
ages after he is in his grave ; and that salutary as 
repentance is, for the character and prospects of a 
repenting sinner, even repentance is unavailing to 
repair mischief already done, or to stay the evil in- 
fluence of his misconduct upon others ! 

The Jews, being thus regularly organized for self- 
defence by the prudent sagacity of Mordecai, were 
also restrained far within the limits of the decree. 
We are expressly told that they did not lay hands 
upon the spoil. If the warfare had been conducted 
in an irregular and lawless manner, allowing every 
man to do that which was right in his own eye- : 
if, in other words, Mordecai had consented to use 
Hainan's weapons — for his decree contemplated 
just such lawless warfare, and the counter decree 
allowed it to the Jews — then would it have been im- 
possible to restrain many from enriching themselves, 
when their passions were thoroughly aroused ; and 
thus unoffending citizens might have suffered. No 
such scenes of outrage were perpetrated by the 
Jewish party that day. Mordecai desires to secure 
the character of God's covenant people free from all 
reproaches; he would place them as far as possible 
above the suspicion of improper motives ; he would 



THE DAY OF CONFLICT. 239 

use only such severity as self defence required ; 
and therefore the command was given to lay no 
hand upon the spoil. 

It seems strange that the Jews found any serious 
molestation upon that day after such preparations 
for defence. With the favour of the government, 
with bands well trained, and especially when the 
great leader of the opposition was dead, we might 
suppose they would be let alone. And certainly the 
blame, in the whole matter, rests upon their enemies. 
Not only did Haman, without just cause, begin the 
strife, but on that day— it is worthy of distinct notice 
— the Jews had power only to defend and not to 
attack. Acting solely upon the defensive, they had 
no responsibility for the slaughter committed ; and 
our wonder is greater that their determined enemies 
should not retire from the now unequal conflict. 

But we may suppose that during two months while 
Haman lived, and every body expected the decree to 
go into effect, many provocations had been thrown 
out against the Jews ; and many avowed themselves 
to be their foes who were afterwards ashamed to 
draw back. When men begin an evil course, it is 
often very hard to get right ; the longer they go on 
the worse ; and there seem many reasons for going 
forward. 

Among the reasons for bringing on so fierce a 
conflict upon that day we may suppose that envy 
and religious bigotry were the chief exciting causes. 
Doubtless many were envious of Mordecai's eleva- 



240 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

tion. A Jew, and of an humble station, raised to so 
dignified a place, and using his power to sustain his 
own people, would necessarily arouse revenge and 
jealousy, especially in those that fell as he rose. But 
beside these political causes for strife, the Jews had 
many mortal foes in the realm of Persia. For the 
sake of explicitly bringing the matter before us, we 
may divide the enemies of the Jews into five classes, 
each distinct in itself, but altogether making a 
formidable opposition even to the kindred of the 
queen. 

1. We class first, because already mentioned, disap- 
pointed political aspirants, envious of the Jews for 
their present favour from the throne. 

2. There always has been opposition in this sin- 
ful world to the church of God ; and wherever true 
piety exists, it will meet with hostility. The friend- 
ship of the world is enmity with God. This enmity 
began with man's apostasy ; and with numberless 
changes of form in different ages and persons, it has 
been restless, and sleepless, and undying ever since. 
It is the vestal fire upon the altar in the temple of 
Satan, and never goes out. It burned in the heart 
of Cain when he slew his brother ; and the single 
and sufficient reason in the Scriptures for the first 
fratricide is the contrast of their characters and 
deeds : " His own works were evil, and his bro- 
ther's righteous.' , This hatred of the world against 
the church, exhibits itself all around us, in a thou- 
sand forms, both open and concealed ; it arrayed 



THE DAY OF CONFLICT. 241 

itself against the Jews on that day ; and this alone 
sufficiently accounts for the madness with which 
they were attacked throughout the realm. 

3. Allied to these enemies by religious bigotry, 
but having peculiar reasons for rage and spiteful- 
ness, we may rank the various pagan priesthoods 
of the kingdom. Many of the people of the land 
became Jews. This could not occur without arous- 
ing the hostility of the priests. The church of God 
has suffered much in all ages from the fanaticism 
and bigotry, the covetousness and ambition, of a 
wicked priesthood. Every intelligent reader of his- 
tory, capable of discriminating between the health- 
ful influence of true religion, and the destroying 
power of priestly domination, will understand that 
the priests of the wide empire would do much to 
promote this fanatical warfare. 

4. The fourth class of enemies might consist of 
tribes that formerly lived near the land of Palestine, 
and were now captives and exiles like the Jews them- 
selves. These had formerly had war with the Jews, 
and were willing to embrace the opportunity of re- 
newing their hostility and gratifying their revenge. 

5. The fifth class, allied to these but deserving spe- 
cial mention in this connection for obvious reasons, 
would be the Amalekites, the peculiar and heredi- 
tary foes of the Jews. Haman, we have seen, was 
the chief of these. We have no means of ascer- 
taining their number^; but it was no doubt great 
enough to form an important element in the strife. 

21 



242 ESTHER AND HER TIME?. 

It is most likely that the Amalekites, with the ten 
sons of Haman at their head, led on the desperate 
assault. Stung to madness by the remembrance 
of their ancient animosity, by the disgrace of 
Haman, by the loss of the royal favour, and by 
almost every motive that could kindle political ran- 
cour or religious bigotry, they were ready to risk 
all in the effort to avenge themselves. 

When we consider these different classes of 
enemies to the Jews, it is not so surprising that the 
strife was not ended by the issuing of Mordecai's 
decree ; and that the dawning of that day was anti- 
cipated with anxiety. 

Time brought duly round the appointed period 

here emphatically called " the day that the enemies 

of the Jews hoped to have power over them." To 

the pagan party it was a " lucky day;" a day chosen 

by lot by Haman after an appeal to his gods to help 

him. That these vain gods could not deliver 

Haman himself, has not destroyed the confidence 

of his followers. They trust that they shall find 

the Jews too weak for them. The vigour of the 

attack may be understood from the simple record 

that 75,000 men perished on the side of the pagan 

party. This however would be but an average of 

six hundred men in each of the provinces of the 

empire. The aggregate was large; but it was a 

barbarous age, a fierce warfare, and upon a day set 

apart for lawlessness and animosity, for cupidity 

and revenge. The heaviest attack was probably 



THE DAY OF CONFLICT. 243 

made in Shushan and upon the very palace of Atias- 
uerus himself. In the royal city eight hundred men 
were slain of the pagan party ; five hundred upon 
the first day at the palace, and three hundred the 
next day ; and Ahasuerus had too good reason to 
see that Esther was not too much in earnest when 
she plead for the life of her people. Upon such a 
day, while other laws were laid aside, that one was 
also forgotten that sackcloth might not enter the 
king's gates. Grim visaged war, authorized by the 
monarch's own decree, dared to enter ; and death 
revelled that day in the halls of Persian royalty. 
What a contrast between these scenes and those 
with which the book began, when the princes of 
Persia were gathered there for six months of feast- 
ing! 

The palace would naturally be the chief point of 
attack, and there the most desperate fighting would 
occur. The Amalekites led on the war. The 
ten sons of Haman, burning with religious fana- 
ticism, with mortification for their father's dis- 
grace, and with reven'ge for his ignominious death, 
were at their head. The desperate nature of the 
battle there, is shown by the death of all these sons 
upon the spot. They attacked the palace chiefly, 
because there their enemies were, and they had full 
power by the law to slay Esther and Mordecai if 
they could. The decree was in full force that they 
might slay whatever Jews they could ; and they 
would rather have slain these two, than half the rest 



244 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

of the Jewish nation. If even they slew the queen 
they did but what the law T allowed. And if Ahaft- 
uerus should lose Esther, he could fill her place 
as easily as the place of Vashti. And we must 
acknowledge the superior policy of this plan. If 
there was any wisdom in carrying on the war at all, 
it was the strongest point of policy to make the 
main attack upon the palace itself. It would be a 
great victory, if, at the loss of many lives, they 
could strike down Mordecai; or if Hainan's own 
sons could revenge on Esther herself, the fall and 
death of their father. 

It was no false estimate that Mordecai had formed 
of Israel's foes ; and no false alarm that he had 
sounded in Esther's ears, when he said to her, 
" Think not that thou shalt escape in the king's 
house more than all the Jews." Add to these thoughts 
that these very foes of Israel once possessed the hon- 
ours of the palace ; that they knew the avenues of ac- 
cess and the best methods of making an attack upon it ; 
and that in all likelihood they had many secret friends 
still in power, and even perhaps holding places of 
trust about the queen herself; and we need not be 
surprised that a severe struggle took place at Shushan 
a.nd in the palace. 

At the close of that fatal day, the king addressed 
Esther and asked what was her further desire. It 
does not appear that she came again to ask any 
new thing. Ahasuerus himself has seen enough of 
the enmity of her foes, and voluntarily offers to grant 



THE DAY OF CONFLICT. 245 

further requests. And if in the first view of Esther's 
new request she seems to go too far, and perhaps to 
indulge in a vindictive spirit, let us fully understand 
the case before we form our judgment. It would be 
no great wonder indeed if in the fierce excitements 
of that day, and with the bloody bodies of five 
hundred foes and perhaps nearly as many friends in 
the very palace, Esther had found it no easy task 
to keep down the rising of unholy feelings ; but we 
think justice and sound policy, apart from revenge, 
will warrant her further demands. She asks that 
the decree may be so extended as to justify the Jews 
in a second day's warfare ; and that the bodies of 
Haman's sons might be exposed upon the gallows. 
So far as these sons of Haman are concerned, we 
may remark that they were Amalekites, and the 
curse of Grod was still upon them, and the Israelites 
could make no peace with them ; that they had 
abundant opportunities to escape from Shushan within 
the past nine months, or even that day they might 
have remained safely at home ; that they were the 
assailants and chief instigators of the war, and de- 
served to be treated as rebel ringleaders who had 
fallen that day with arms in their hands ; that it 
was highly necessary to strike terror to the enemies 
of the Jews; and that the practice of exposing publicly 
the bodies of great criminals has been common in 
all ages. As before remarked, hanging was not 
the usual method of capital punishment ; but the 
method of exposing the body after death. As to 
21* 



246 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

the war of another day, the Jews were still upon 
the defensive. It was necessary for their protection 
that they should be upon their guard ; and that the 
officers and guards of the emperor should stand by 
them. The defeat of the first day but aroused the 
greater animosity of their foes ; and had they found 
the Jews unprepared, they would have fought with- 
out the colour of law. By appointing this second 
day the Jews were kept from scattering ; the king 
exhibited his determination to support them ; and 
the advantage was given them in case any legal 
question should arise touching their defence. But 
the sufficient vindication of Esther and the Jews is the 
fact that they acted wholly upon the defensive ; and 
the responsibility of the bloodshed was upon the 
assailants. It is likely the safe victory could not 
have been secured at less expense. The Jews as a 
matter of principle did less than the law allowed ; 
did not lay their hands upon the spoil ; and only 
slew those that, as the allies of paganism, tried to 
take their lives. 

It seems a strange thing indeed ; and yet the 
world has reason enough to understand how true it 
is, that a kingdom so holy and so beneficent as the 
church of the living God, cannot exist in this fallen 
world, without being the occasion of strifes and di- 
visions among men. Even the Prince of Peace 
himself has said, " Think not that I am come to 
send peace upon earth ; I am not come to send 
peace but a sword." The principles of the gospel 



THE DAY OF CONFLICT. 247 

are peaceful, and of course all its legitimate ten- 
dencies are so too ; but to introduce these holy 
principles into a sinful world is often the stirring up 
of strifes, tumults, persecutions, and revolutions. 
It is a matter of interesting inquiry, How far is the 
gospel of Christ responsible for these results ? And 
the proper reply is that Christ and his gospel are 
not at all responsible for these wicked things. Men 
professing religious principles have often been fa- 
natical, persecuting, and injurious ; but all this by 
departing from the principles of true religion. It 
is one of the necessary penalties of everything 
truly valuable, that it is liable to be counterfeited ; 
and religion, the most valuable thing in the world, is 
no exception. Indeed it is the honour of religion, 
rather than the reverse, that it most of all things 
has been basely counterfeited; and man's duty, here 
and elsewhere, is to separate the precious from the 
vile ; to receive only the true among many false. 
The true position of piety in all ages is that which 
the Jews here exhibit. God's people hold and pro- 
claim the principles of truth and peace ; but they 
use carnal weapons only in self defence, when they 
stand by their principles and use legitimate means 
to set them forth. The religion of the Bible may 
be defended by the sword ; but it may not so be 
propagated. This is the example of the Jews in 
Persia. Their enemies had malice enough to at-" 
tack them ; and let their foes bear the responsibil- 
ity. So in the days of early Christianity, the gos- 



248 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

pel stirred up strife; but the real cause was the 
malice of its assailants. Surely Christianity is not 
responsible for the strifes where she was simply the 
victim and not the assailant ; where she meekly 
poured forth the blood of her children, not of her 
foes; and where, keeping inside of man's inalienable 
rights, she did not even exert herself in self defence. 
Making all due allowance for the occasional rash- 
ness and bigotry of good men in various ages ; care- 
fully distinguishing the madness and wickedness 
of persecution by professed friends of religion, 
whose spirit was far apart from the spirit of Jesus, 
we may justly say that all the troubles in the world, 
apparently originating from the church of God, have 
really arisen from the wickedness of men setting 
themselves in opposition to the holy principles of 
piety. We may well stand amazed at the madness 
and folly of man's sin ! What insanity is it for 
immortal men to fight against the only hopes of 
eternal life, that are worthy of the name; against 
the holiest principles ever proclaimed ; against their 
own true happiness; against God himself! It had 
been true honour and dignity had Hainan and his 
party forsaken their dumb idols and bowed down 
f before the unseen God of Mordecai. It had been 
true policy had the Roman emperors adopted, rather 
than persecuted, the holy and ennobling religion 
of Jesus. It had been true glory for apostate 
Rome to cherish and exalt the sacred Scriptures, 
rather than to burn and curse those who read them. 



THE DAY OF CONFLICT. 249 

Are the sufferers to blame for the sins of their per- 
secutors ? Even when weapons of self defence have 
been used, are we to charge upon the defenders 
the sin of the assailants ? The gospel is holy, if 
men are mad. Its teachings are a blessing to our 
race, and its hopes are light in a world of darkness, 
if even it does " turn the world upside down." It 
arouses evil passions, because wicked men wish no 
disturbance. It is thoroughly foreign to the spirit 
of ungodly men, because ungodly men are wrong. 
When truth may be reviled for differing from error ; 
w r hen light may be reproached for dispelling dark- 
ness ; when good may be rejected for not agreeing 
with evil ; when justice is despised, because it knows 
no fraud ; when holiness is blamed, because it has 
no fellowship with sin ; then let Christ be rejected, 
because he has no concord with Belial ; and his gos- 
pel refused, because sinful men war against it; and 
his people reproached, because they suffer for right- 
eousness' sake. 

But if we wonder at the opposition of ungodly 
men in bygone days, against the church of God, is 
it not even a greater marvel to see the claims of piety 
yet resisted by men who have been born in the 
bosom of the Christian church, who have been 
trained in her principles, and who see their own 
danger and ruin in neglecting their duty ? We can 
account for Hainan's malice against the Jewish ' 
name ; he was educated in all the hatred of a heredi- 
tary foe. But men born in Christian lands, having 



250 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

had Christian parents and a pious training, whose 
feet visit the sanctuary, and whose hearts have often 
pondered their duty to the Redeemer, yet remain 
enemies of the cross of Christ. Many indeed are 
not the avowed enemies of the gospel. But this 
only makes it a matter of greater wonder, why 
they can so long, and with so much indifference, 
stand in such a position, that the Scriptures them- 
selves can charge them with hostility. If any man 
really loves Christ and his service, why does he not 
decidedly and earnestly avow that love ? why not 
join in the ranks of Christ's people and serve 
Christ with an obedient heart ? Why will men allow 
themselves to neglect the plain calls of duty for so 
many years ; and never take a decided stand ? The 
very fact that they can remain so, shows their true 
character. " He that is not with me is against me.'' 
When the understanding is convinced that this is 
the path of duty; when the conscience declares 
that they should love Jesus ; it appears so much 
the worse that any can delay or refuse to side with 
the avowed friends of Jesus. 

This day of fearful conflict in the Persian Empire 
is an emblem of the strife existing, every day, in 
every age, in all the earth, between the church and 
the world. The victory in this strife shall remain 
with the church of God. The battle is raging now, 
and the tide of success seems often to turn against 
Zion. The enemy often raises a shout of triumph. 
On that day many of the Jews fell by the hands of 



THE DAT OF CONFLICT. 251 

their foes. But the issue was for them. In the 
great battle all the friends of Christ shall be crowned 
with victory, and every foe shall perish. Sinful men 
contend, not simply against the church, but against 
the Head of the church ; not alone against truth, but 
against the God of truth. The conflict is vain ; the 
apparent success delusive. " Hast thou an arm 
like God ?" And vain and delusive is every excuse. 
It is vain to say you are not fighting against him ; 
vain to indulge in frivolous excuses. The only course 
of true wisdom and safety is to cast away every re- 
bellious thought; to draw near to God; to receive 
the teachings of his word ; to accept the offers of his 
salvation. You cannot too much admire the riches 
of that forgiving mercy which so long forbears 
with the sinful sons of men ; and which continues 
to offer terms of pardon even to the rebellious. But 
forget not that thousands have presumed too far 
upon the Divine forbearance ; and have delayed the 
period of their submission to the Almighty king 
until no terms of submission would be accepted. If 
the holy Scriptures lay great stress upon our accept- 
ing the just terms of the gospel, they insist with no 
less urgency that men should consider and embrace 
the right time of thfc Lord's mercy. 

If the Jews were a terror to their foes in the day 
of their defence, who shall stand when God riseth 
up to judgment ? 



ESTHER AND HER TIME?. 



LECTURE XII. 

THE FEAST PURIM. 

The great day of conflict was now past. If we 
are right in supposing that, besides the sons of 
Hainan, many of those slain in the battle were 
Amalekites, this is their last appearance upon the 
page of history ; and with the last effort of the 
Agagite, closed a long struggle with the church of 
God. Here then was fulfilled a prophecy uttered 
many centuries before by the lips of Balaam, "And 
when he looked on Amalek, he took up his parable 
and said, Amalek was the first of the nations, but 
his latter end shall be that he perish for ever.* 
Num. xxiv. 20. We have long previously re- 
marked that the first battle fought by the children 
of Israel after leaving Egypt, was with Amalek, 
Exod. xvii. 8 ; and as the book of Esther closes the 
historical records of the old Testament, we may 
look back upon the warfare with deep interest. For 
Amalek is a scriptural type of our spiritual iov< : 
and there is a lesson for us where our true strength 
lies. Amalek was no despicable foe ; and had 



THE FEAST PURIM. 253 

Israel stood alone, the tide of victory might have 
been adverse. Look back to the first battle fought 
by Joshua, that great Israelitish leader ; and while 
you recall the doubtful strife, gaze up to the neigh- 
bouring hill top, where Moses holds up his heavy 
hands to heaven, and where Aaron and Hur prevent 
the prevalence of Amalek. Look back to David, 
greatly distressed while he pursues Amalek, and 
read there also, " David encouraged himself in the 
Lord his God." 1 Sam. xxx. 6. Remember, too, 
that this last strife which ends with the sword of 
Mordecai, began with Esther's prayer and fasting. 
The strength of Zion against Zion's foes is not 
Zion's strong right arm ; but the cry of her pro- 
phets, and her kings, and her feeble women in the 
ear of Zion's King. 

After such a victory, it was becoming that the 
Jews should rejoice. The deliverance was great ; 
it was effected by the evident blessing of their cov- 
enant God; and they rejoiced in it the more, as a 
triumph over that foe, whom God had commanded 
them to smite. And here we have a scriptural 
model, after which we might properly fashion our 
Thanksgiving days : " days of feasting and joy, and 
of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the 
poor." And surely gifts to the poor are especially 
becoming, when the very object of the thanksgiving 
is God's providential bounty. 

But the Jewish people were not content with 
rejoicing over their victory at that time. Hainan's 
22 



254 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

lucky day was set apart from that time even down 
to the present, as a day whose anniversary should 
be celebrated; showing thus their sense of the 
greatness of the victory, and their gratitude to Him 
who granted it. This feast is still observed by the 
scattered Jewish people. On the thirteenth day of 
the month Adar, which corresponds to February or 
March in our reckoning, they observe a fast in re- 
membrance of "the fast of Esther, when she went 
before the king. In the evening of the fourteenth, 
and on the morning of the fifteenth day of the 
month, there is a service in the synagogue; and 
they commemorate the happy deliverance recorded 
in the book of Esther. The Chazan, or Reader, 
reads and explains the entire book of Esther, which 
is written on vellum and rolled up like the Penta- 
teuch ; and this book has the honour of being writ- 
ten upon a separate roll, and is called Megillah or 
the volume. When the reader has opened the book, 
he pronounces three prayers, giving thanks to God 
for the great deliverance here recorded. Every 
time that, in reading the book, he pronounces the 
name of Haman, the Jews stamp with their feet, 
and cry out, "Let the memory of the wicked per- 
ish ;" and the little children, with wooden hammers 
provided for the occasion, strike loudly on the walk 
or seats. They also read from the book of Exodus 
that passage which records the first battle fought 
by their ancestors with the Amalekites. It is re- 
garded as a festival of great joy, and even of mer- 



THE FEAST PUKIM. 255 

riment ; the Jews send presents to each other ; and 
the time is spent in gayety and cheerfulness. They 
even think it allowable to indulge largely in wine in 
memory of Esther's banquet. The imperfection 
of the Jewish Calendar sometimes requires an inter- 
calary month. This is always the month Ada$ ? 
called by way of distinction Ve-Adar or Second 
Adar. This occurred every two or three years ; 
and the fourteenth day of the first Adar was called 
the Little Purim ; but none of the ceremonies of 
this feast were observed upon it. 

It is most likely that many of the ceremonies of 
this feast have been gradually changed and increased 
since its first establishment. But the appointment 
of the feast itself dates back to the days of Morde- 
cai and Esther ; and we think there are some im- 
portant and profitable thoughts naturally suggested 
by its appointment. 

The first question is, By what authority was the 
feast established? Was it of human or Divine 
appointment ? 

In reference to this question, we have no direct 
proof. The feast seems to have been established 
instrumentally through Esther and Mordecai ; but 
we have no direct declaration that they were 
divinely authorized to make the appointment. The 
record is made in a book of Canonical Authority ; 
so ever received by the Jews ; so received in the 
time of Christ and by our Lord himself. In this 
volume no disapproval is shown of the appointment ; 



256 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

and the Jews have ever regarded it as a solemn 
festival. These, in brief, are the reasons for sup- 
posing that they rightly kept it as of Divine ap- 
pointment. And when we are told that the decree 
of Esther " confirmed these matters of Purim, and 
it was written in the book," we understand it as a 
record in this inspired roll that the feast was estab- 
lished. 

There is a very important principle here involved. 
Few things tend more to the corruption of religion, 
than the assumed authority in human hands, to ap- 
point stated days for special religious service, and to 
require their observance. In the Old Testament 
times the people of God from the beginning of the 
world observed the Sabbath day, which was ap- 
pointed at the Creation, and even kept by our first 
parents in their estate of innocence, and by the 
children of Israel before they came to Sinai. After 
they came from Egypt, the Jews observed a number 
of feasts, of Sabbatical months and Sabbatical years, 
for one and another purpose, as enjoined by the 
Mosaic law. The Passover, for example, commem- 
orated the safety of Israel on that dreadful night, 
when the first born of Egypt were slain ; the day of 
Pentecost was a day of thanksgiving for the first 
fruits of the harvest ; the Sabbatical year and the 
year of Jubilee (which was a more solemn Sabbatical 
year twice in a century) were devout recognitions 
of God's authority and propriety in the land of 
Canaan, given for their use to his covenant people. 



THE FEAST PURIM. 257 

But in the New Testament we find not only a total 
omission to appoint such days, not only no authority 
given to any power to establish them, but a direct 
and absolute freedom asserted from all such observ- 
ances. The apostle Paul repeatedly speaks of those 
who esteem one day above another ; who observe 
days and seasons and months and years ; and tells 
us to let no man judge us in respect to new moons 
or holy-days or sabbaths ; for these were but shadows 
of good things to come. For many and important 
reasons we do not understand the apostle in these 
passages as denying the perpetual obligation and 
Divine authority of the weekly Sabbath. Not only 
is such an institution imperatively necessary for 
man's instruction in religious things, and thus 
absolutely essential to the very existence of the 
church of God upon earth ; not only were there 
among the Jews several other kinds of Sabbaths of 
which the apostle speaks, and which might properly 
be classed with the other festivals he enumerates, 
as the weekly Sabbath might not be ; but there are 
many other important reasons which show that Paul 
had no design to invalidate the sanctity of the weekly 
Sabbath. Not designing, of course, a full discussion 
of the matter, we suggest these thoughts. 

(1.) The weekly Sabbath was not a Jewish ordi- 
nance at all ; it was ordained at the creation of the 
world ; it was made for man as a race, and not for 
the Jews as a nation ; and as not founded upon the 
22* 



258 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

Jewish law, we ought not to expect it to perish 
when the Jewish law was abrogated. 

(2.) The weekly Sabbath was enjoined in the 
ten commandments — a dignity conferred upon no 
Jewish festival. Thus was it evidently designed 
for a moral precept — permanent like the other parts 
of that law. 

( 3.) The entire tenor of the Scriptures enjoins 
the keeping of the Sabbath day ; the apostle Paul 
himself kept it ; and the sacred meetings of the 
church were held on the first day of the week. 

( 4.) The Sabbath has actually been kept in the 
Christian church in all periods of her history, 
and in all the lands of her wide dispersion. The 
convincing and indisputable proof that the Jewish 
new moons, feasts, and fasts were not designed to 
be permanent in the Christian church, is the fact 
that they have disappeared for centuries — indeed 
ever since the apostolic days. If God had designed 
his people to keep them, he would have given them 
directions accordingly in his word, and support in 
his providence. It is a clear proof that the Sabbath 
was to remain after these other days had been for- 
gotten, that the Sabbath has actually been kept. 
Is it not perfectly plain, if Paul's language had 
succeeded in destroying the reverence in the church 
for the new moons and the weekly Sabbaths alike, 
that at no subsequent period, in opposition to his 
inspired authority, could the Sabbath have been re- 
vived and re-established ? It cannot be possible, 



THE FEAST PURIM. 259 

that the church of his own age or of any subse- 
quent age, understood Paul to argue against the 
permanence and obligation of the weekly Sabbath. 

But the Apostle did mean to teach, and the 
history of the church proves that he was understood 
to mean, that the solemn days of the old economy 
were not binding upon Christians. The New Tes- 
tament gives no authority to any man or set of 
men to appoint solemn days as stated occasions in 
the worship of God. Such days have indeed been 
appointed at various times by the authority of 
church rulers ; but the earliest date is far this side 
of Apostolic authority. And the entire tendency 
of such human appointments is to impair the sanc- 
tity of the Sabbath, to elevate the human ordinance 
above the Divine, and to make religious services 
formal. It is no difficult thing to discern that in 
the Church of Rome her solemn festivals are more 
sacredly and strictly kept than the Sabbath itself. 
Indeed the sanctity of the Lord's holy day is de- 
stroyed by the festivals of the church. It is diffi- 
cult, if not impossible, to decide how far such ap- 
pointments are valid, unless we utterly deny that 
any authority, short of inspired men, can appoint 
any stated occasion of religious worship. This re- 
mark applies only to stated days of regular occur- 
rence. So in the Directory for Worship of the 
Presbyterian church, ( chapter xiv. § 1, 2,) we have ' 
these words : " There is no day under the gospel 
commanded to be kept holy, except the Lord's day, 



260 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

which is the Christian Sabbath. Nevertheless to 
observe days of fasting and thanksgiving, as the 
extraordinary dispensations of Divine providence 
may direct, we judge both scriptural and rational." 
Every attempt to multiply religious days, beyond 
the Divine appointment of the Sabbath, tends to 
weaken the authority and sanctity of the day di- 
vinely appointed ; and certain it is, that those 
Christians, who hallow only the Sabbath, are the 
most devout and exemplary in keeping the Lord's 
day. 

But passing from this point, let us notice a second 
inquiry of some interest in connection with this 
feast established in the days of Esther. How far 
do such institutions establish the historical truth of 
the occurrences they are designed to commemorate? 
Could such a feast possibly be established in mem- 
ory of certain events — could it be kept by succ 
ive generations of a widely scattered people — with- 
out any foundation in truth ? Or is the history 
not proved by the existence and influence of the 
institution ? 

There are many ways in which human history 
may be transmitted from one age to another, for a 
long series of centuries. The simplest undoubtedly 
is, that children learn from their parents, and pass 
down the tradition indefinitely. But in these oral 
methods of communication too much of truth is 
lost, too much of fable is added, to allow us to 
place much dependence on the historical relations 



THE FEAST PURIM. 261 

of the barbarous ages and tribes, to which this 
method of communication alone is known. 

Another method of transmitting history is by 
written books. But as the writers have not always 
recorded their personal observations, nor even 
written concerning their own times ; as fictitious his- 
tories have been written, and genuine histories 
altered ; and as other matters arise to diminish our 
confidence in ancient writings, so it is needful that 
we carefully examine the proofs of genuineness and 
truthfulness of even written histories. 

Another method of transmitting the occurrences 
of history to subsequent times, is by the erection of 
some perpetuating structure. For example, the 
American people have built a monument in memory 
of the battle of Bunker's Hill. The object of the 
building is well understood ; it is so large that it 
could not have been put up in a private manner 
without a full understanding over the country, of its 
design ; the erection took place, not immediately 
after the battle, but while some of the men were 
still living who took part in the conflict; and a 
record is made upon the structure and in our na- 
tional annals, of the transaction. Does it not seem 
quite impossible that future ages should doubt that 
such a battle was fought ? Yet such monuments 
might stand, like the pyramids in Egypt; long after 
the memory had faded of the events and times with 
which they were connected. But it will certainly 
be something wonderful, if the records long illegible 



262 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

upon the ruins of antiquity, shall again be deci- 
phered by human industry ; and the world learn 
that the evidences of human history can be made 
almost imperishable. 

But there is another method by which a true his- 
tory may be perpetuated and ratified ; one which 
seems to place the entire facts beyond the possibil- 
ity of forgery or corruption. This is to combine 
a record written at the time, with such an observ- 
ance by the people, as shall keep it before their 
minds, make them familiar with it, and give them a 
constant interest in it. 

For example, on the fourth day of July, A. D. 
1776, a paper was presented to an Assembly of 
Delegates from thirteen States on the American 
continent in General Congress met ; that paper was 
adopted, the effect being to make them a free peo- 
ple ; and that paper spread far and wide among the 
thousands of their constituents to be handed down 
to millions of their successors as the Declaration of 
Independence. But that paper did not go forth alone. 
The fourth day of July, on which it was signed, 
became, by common consent, a national jubilee, to be 
celebrated at each annual return by demonstrations 
of general joy ; and among these, the public read- 
ing of the Declaration itself in the ears of all the 
people. Now make a supposition. Suppose this 
Union should exist for a thousand years ; should 
fill this Northern continent with powerful States ; 
and should swell its population to as many millions 






THE FEAST PURIM. 263 

as we now have thousands. Suppose at the end of 
a thousand years, some historical sceptic should 
doubt whether such a Declaration was ever made, or 
that the United States ever became free by such a 
struggle. Would it not be perfectly just to call 
upon such a man to account for the enthusiastic na- 
tional festival on the fourth of July ; and for the 
high regard paid by the entire people to this writ- 
ten paper ? If he should allege that the paper was 
a forgery, then let him explain how such a forgery 
could possibly be imposed upon a whole people. 
The whole matter as it exists now, and will exist for 
ages, is perfectly plain and simple, if that event 
really took place in Philadelphia in 1776 : every 
body could understand it ; and every man, woman, 
and child felt the influence of it ; there was no 
room for imposition, for the Declaration was pub- 
licly spread abroad from that very day. On the 
other hand, no one can possibly explain how the 
nation could be led to entertain such a belief with- 
out good reason and at a later time. Should any 
one allege that the Declaration had afterwards been 
altered, we affirm that by no possibility could a writ- 
ten, and published, and cherished document like 
that, be altered in a single sentiment. Read by 
every intelligent man; and every year read pub- 
licly aloud in a thousand gatherings in the ears of 
admiring listeners, it could not be changed. Nor 
could an intelligent and great nation, like this, be 
induced to establish such a festival as the fourth of 



2G4 ESTIIER AND HER TIMES. 

July, if the great and glorious event it was designed 
to keep in memory, never actually occurred at all. 
In point of fact, a double monument like this, con- 
sisting of a carefully written document, and of an 
annual festival held to commemorate what that pa- 
per sets forth, is the most enduring monument that 
man can erect ; the most incapable of destruction, 
on the one hand, or of fraud or corruption, upon the 
other. Such a monument to prove an important 
historical truth, becomes even stronger by the lapse 
of ages and by the wide scattering of those that 
keep it up. And many generations hence, if the 
fourth of July should be observed, and the Declara- 
tion of our Independence read, by men who reside 
in such distant cities as Boston, Detroit, Charleston, 
New Orleans, San Francisco, and Honolulu, every 
mind must join to say, that such a thing can be ex- 
plained only by the simplest of all solutions — that 
the historical event they commemorate did actually 
occur. All the intervening history would corro- 
borate the proof. The gradual growth and dis- 
persion of the nation over so wide a territory ; even 
the dissensions of the people, leaving untouched 
these matters of common belief ; the references to 
the Declaration and its results in other histories ; 
its influence upon other nations ; and the pride felt 
by the nation in recounting the past events of their 
history, and this among the chief; all these things 
would continue to make imposture in such a case 
an impossible thing, and to give strength rather 



THE FEAST PURIM. 265 

than weakness to the evidence with advancing years. 
The most permanent and satisfactory of human 
monuments are not built of stone or brass. Like 
the pyramids of Egypt, these may rise before the 
gaze of ages that know nothing of their builders. 
A monument erected in the hearts of a people ; a 
monument on which no false inscription can be 
written ; accompanied by a truthful record of its 
institution, and kept in memory by a festival, recur- 
ring regularly and cheerfully observed, is one which 
can scarcely be perverted from its original form ; 
and which, taken with the document, is complete 
evidence of any historical fact. 

Now what we here apply to the fourth of July and 
the Declaration of Independence, may properly and 
forcibly be applied to the Jewish feast of Purim 
and the Book of Esther. These two are as in- 
timately connected together as the other two. The 
Jewish feast has been kept for over two thousand 
years ; and, as we have already noticed, the entire 
book of Esther is read at its annual celebrations. 
That there are Apocryphal additions to the book 
of Esther, is no invalidation of the argument, since 
these have never been received by the Jews. That 
this feast did not originate in Jerusalem, the usual 
ecclesiastical capital of the nation, but that its 
observance began in the empire of Persia, rather 
renders the proof stronger than weaker. It could 
not have spread throughout the wide dispersion from 
such a beginning ; it could not have led the entire 
23 



266 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

Jewish people to receive the book of Esther among 
their sacred books, or to observe the Feast of Purim 
among their sacred festivals, unless good and sufficient 
reasons had urged them so to do. Knowing, as we 
do, the dispositions of men, and especially the 
jealousy of the Jewish people respecting their sacred 
customs and their religious books, we cannot believe 
that any reasons, short of the full truth of this 
narrative, would lead them to receive these things. 

Here is a people more widely scattered than any 
other people ; no people more jealous than they of 
their religious doctrines and their sacred books ; no 
people as a mass and for generations together having 
superior intelligence ; and none better instructed in 
their own sacred writings. This people all keep the 
Feast of Purim, and read upon it the book of Esther ; 
their fathers for ages have done so ; their national 
writers, stretching back two thousand years, own the 
truth, and refer to it in different ways ; these things 
constitute a net-work of complicated circumstantial 
evidence, impossible to be counterfeited, and more 
conclusive in the certainty of its proof than any 
array of positive witnesses could be in such a 
case. 

An eminent scientific gentleman, of whose re- 
searches and attainments and standing the Ameri- 
can people may well be proud,* tells us that there 
is a river running through the Atlantic ocean ; rising 

* Lieut. Maury. " Physical Geography," chap. i. 



THE FEAST PUKIM. 267 

in the Gulf of Mexico and emptying into the Arctic 
Seas ; its bottom and precipitous banks formed of cold 
water on either side ; its stream, the heated water 
of the Torrid Zone; its current swifter, and its 
volume of water a thousand times beyond the Mis- 
sissippi or the Amazon ; and spreading as it proceeds 
northward, it tempers the climate of Western Europe 
and clothes its shores with a delightful verdure, that 
widely contrasts with the same latitude on the other 
side of the ocean. The effects of this stream were felt 
for the good of western Europe long before its existence 
was known, or philosophy had investigated its causes, 
and had taught us to admire in it the wisdom of 
God's providence ; and among the causes which led 
to the discovery of this Western Continent, we must 
number the drifts carried across the ocean by this 
remarkable river. The brother-in-law of Columbus 
found, in the Atlantic, west of the Madeira Islands, 
a curiously carved piece of timber that had floated 
from the west ;* trees torn up by the roots had come 
in the same direction ; and the bodies of two men, with 
features different from any known upon the Eastern 
Continent were cast upon the coast of the Azores. 
The Scriptures, in the bold figure of oriental 
diction, liken the nations of men to " many waters;" 
and through the vast ocean of human population 
that has tossed its restless waves around our globe 
for 3500 years past, there runs a remarkable river ; 

* Robertson's America, p. 44. Irviug's Columbus, p. 21. 



268 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

its source is in the plains of Mesopotamia ; its volume 
is vast beyond any other living stream that can be 
attributed to one national origin ; unlike the Atlantic 
river, it has spread all over the world, still as dis- 
tinctly dividing its waters from those in immediate 
contact with it. 

The maintenance of the Jewish national existence, 
while they have for ages been scattered among other 
nations and yet have been perfectly distinct from 
them, is as strange a thing as a river running 
through the ocean, and refusing to mingle with the 
surrounding mass of waters ; and as this great 
current in the Atlantic has important uses in God's 
providence, so this distinct current in the ocean of 
humanity has its important design in the orderings 
of God's moral government. Other nations have 
been deprived of their liberties and scattered from 
their homes ; but a few generations sufficed in each case 
to lose and absorb them in the surrounding popula- 
tion. Upon this continent now a great experiment 
is going on, of many nations losing their national dis- 
tinctions in one; and with the third generation, we can 
scarcely distinguish a trace of the distinctive Euro- 
pean origin. But, not stopping now to consider the 
simple and strange exception of the gipsy race, no 
people has ever existed like the Jews, maintaining their 
unbroken national existence and their uncorrupted 
national books for so many generations, and through 
such violent changes. Upon this stream in the ocean 
of time, and from another stream branching oil' from 



THE FEAST PURIM. 269 

it in the form of Christianity, two thousand years 
ago, have floated down to us the most important 
teachings and institutions which the God of provi- 
dence and grace would establish and maintain among 
the sons of men. A man might just as well affirm 
that the Gulf Stream, with all its beneficent in- 
fluences, was the contrivance of human wit, as 
attempt to class among the follies of human impos- 
ture, the proof of historical verity afforded by the 
incontrovertible truths of the Jewish nationality. 
Past ages have not discerned, much less designed, 
the plans of Divine wisdom to govern the physical 
and the moral world. We can hardly decide which 
is the more remarkable : the teachings themselves, 
or the historical proof of their truth. The nations 
to w r hom have been borne the institutions and the 
instructions which this Providential stream carries 
along with it, exhibit an elevation of intellectual and 
moral character quite as striking as the physical 
differences between the Emerald Isle in the Gulf 
Stream, and the frozen coasts of Labrador, which 
are out of the Gulf Stream, and yet are in the same 
latitude with Ireland. Let it be our wisdom to 
note these contrasts in God's moral, as well as his 
physical rule ; and to ascribe them to their just 
cause ; the wisdom of Him who made and governs 
the world. 

If any man should attempt to construct an 
argument to prove the truth of any ancient re- 
cords, he cannot even imagine one more natural 
23* 



270 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

than this ; it is quite impossible to find one more 
conclusive ; and not one historical document out of 
a thousand has proof of its verity in anywise com- 
parable to such as this. And when we reflect that 
the same kind of an argument and with peculiar 
conclusiveness of reasoning in each case can be 
adopted for at least three things in the Bible : that 
there are three double monuments — a book and a 
positive institution — erected by Divine wisdom and 
perpetuated among men together ; we may under- 
stand in some degree how remarkably the historical 
proofs of the Bible preponderate over all other evi- 
dences of human history. We have no institutions 
handed down from antiquity in so direct a line, and 
accompanied by the written explanation of their 
founders. When Moses wrote the first historical 
books of the Bible, he taught the Jewish people to 
observe the feast of the Passover ; when Mordecai 
wrote the last historical book of the Old Testament, 
the feast of Purim was established ; when Christ and 
his apostles gave the church the New Testament, 
the Lord's supper was ordained. These three 
feasts are yet kept by Jews and Christians ; and 
it is impossible to give a satisfactory account of 
their existence and wide adoption, without acknow- 
ledging in full the authenticity of the volume which 
gives them all their authority. The doctrinal differ- 
ences in Christian churches respecting the Lord's 
supper only strengthen the argument ; since no 
differences exist respecting the history of its insti- 



THE FEAST PURIM. 271 

tution, and all agree in referring to the same written 
document. It seems impossible to give greater 
historical evidence to any book, than God has 
gathered around the Bible. The sacred volume 
has all the evidence in its favour that any ancient 
history has ; and superadded, it has proofs that 
belong to no ancient author. It may indeed be 
questioned, whether a continued evidence from 
miracles would be of more force to convince men of 
the truth of the Bible, than this perfect and adaman- 
tine chain of circumstantial historical proof to the 
mind that candidly and intelligently weighs it. 

And now, after these long reflections, we may re- 
turn again for a few moments to the narrative of 
the book of Esther. As the chronicles of the kings 
of Media and Persia have perished, for they had no 
monument erected in the hearts of a perpetual 
people to keep them in remembrance ; we have no 
knowledge from other sources of the tribute laid 
by king Ahasuerus upon the land, and upon the 
islands. Possibly among the wonders of modern 
researches into the remains of antiquity, we may 
yet reckon some proofs corroborative of the book 
of Esther ; as indeed flying rumour repeated a little 
while ago that the tesselated marble pavement of 
the palace of Shushan had been disinterred ; and 
even the names and deeds of Mordecai and Esther 
had been read upon newly discovered monuments. 
However this may be, ancient historians tell us that 
the kings of Persia, reigning before the time of 



272 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

Alexander the Great, exacted tokens of submission 
from the surrounding lands ; but of any special tax 
like that here referred to, or of the greatness of 
Mordecai the Jew, we know only what is here told 
us. It is gratifying to be informed that in his pros- 
perity Mordecai maintained the same inflexible in- 
tegrity that had characterized his earlier days. 
He still sought the prosperity of his people, and 
spoke peace to all his seed. None are better pre- 
pared for prosperity than those that have w T ell en- 
dured trial. And thus we see that the God of 
Jacob gave his people his protection in the land of 
their exile. 

After the death of Mordecai and during the 
subsequent troubles of the Persian empire, and after 
its overthrow by Alexander the Great, the Jews suf- 
fered many evils ; both those in Persia, and those 
that had returned to Palestine. It does not belong 
to the present lectures to consider these matters. 
As before intimated they were all preparatory t<> 
the coming of Christ, and the spread of the gospel 
was facilitated by these revolutions, and the wide 
dispersion of the Jewish exiles. 

Here then closes the narrative of the book. Our 
curiosity craves more ; and perhaps to gratify this 
craving, the apocryphal chapters were written. But 
besides the refutation we have already given to their 
claims, we may add that the last chapter enjoins the 
Persians upon their peril to keep this festival. We 
have no evidence that they ever did so ; and the re- 



THE FEAST PURIM. 273 

markable historical proof already referred to, totally 
fails to support the apocryphal additions. 

In concluding the lectures on this book, we may 
indulge a few reflections : 

1. Let us learn the great value of the Old Testament 
records. They were written by holy men for no tri- 
fling or transient purpose ; but for the permanent 
instruction of the church of God. Christians would 
take a deeper interest in them, if they studied them 
more closely. This book of God, like all his works, 
will bear close investigation. No man knows how 
much study any subject will bear, until he gives it 
his serious attention. Unwise as well as irreverent 
are they who neglect the Old Testament. It has 
claims on our regard founded upon the same Divine 
authorship with the New. In the later books we 
have more advanced principles and clearer revela- 
tions ; but the two are one system of religious truth. 
The Old cannot be properly read without the light of 
the New : nor can the New be fully comprehended 
without the study of the Old. The lessons of the Old 
should much engage our thoughts. The saints of 
former times belonged to the same church with our- 
selves ; and the trials and triumphs of their faith 
should support and encourage us in conflicts that are 
substantially the same. 

2. We have seen in these lectures the finger of 
God in providence, specially as caring for and pre- 
serving his church. And our wonder is called forth 
by the simplicity of the whole. All the events in 



274 ESTHER AND HER TIMES. 

this interesting history, if we may use the language 
of common life, occur naturally. There is not an 
incident recorded in the book, that seems forced or 
strained; the current of events, the emotions and 
feelings of men, the conjunctions of times and pur- 
poses, the influence of motives — are all such as we 
see in the world around us. There is hardly a sin- 
gle thing of which, taken by itself, apart and 
separated from its connections, we would say, this 
Grod has done ; and yet there is hardly a single thing 
taken in its needful connection with all the rest, 
but we must say of it, this God has done. The 
separate parts of the whole, considered separately, 
are no more strange for man to do, than a thousand 
things going on in the world every day ; but the 
working of all these things together, and the result 
of the whole, are infinitely worthy of the wisdom and 
power, the justice and grace of God. Now when 
we look at our own affairs, we look at the separate 
parts ; we see them disjointed ; we are not capable 
of putting them all harmoniously together ; and we 
fail to recognize the wisdom and goodness of Provi- 
dence because we are incompetent to discover his 
definite designs. 

An ancient humorist tells a story of a foolish 
fellow who had a house to sell ; and carried around 
with him a brick, as a specimen. We can judge of 
Providence by single incidents about as wisely as 
we can judge of a mansion from one portion of its 
materials. Can any man decide what are the fig- 



THE FEAST PURIM. 275 

ures, or what the beauty of an exquisite carpet, by 
seeing a sample of the wool from which it is woven ? 
Let us not be guilty of the folly of prejudging God's 
providence. The events around us and in which 
we are taking part, may apparently be the materials 
of but a common web ; but the Workman is one of 
infinite skill ; and it is beyond our penetration to 
judge what he will make out of it. The hearing of 
a sermon, or the reading of a book, may be the 
turning point under his blessing and direction for 
infinite issues. We may be assured of this, that 
faith in God's truth shall never be confounded. As 
in the days of Esther, so now, " all things work 
together for good to those that love God." "All 
things" are not intrinsically right; some things are 
evil, and naturally tend only to evil ; but " working 
together," the result is good. In some complicated 
machinery, we very often see one movement hori- 
zontal and another oblique, one wheel turning in one 
direction, and another the reverse, yet the result of 
the whole is some harmonious and beneficial result ; 
so in Providence, the end shows Divine wisdom. As 
in the Book of Esther, we see wicked men forming 
their plans and urging forward their purposes ; and 
righteous men praying and weeping and hoping 
and labouring ; and God over all, controlling both, 
restraining the evil, and blessing his people ; so is it 
now ; so will it ever be in the world. The present 
is for us the time of duty and responsibility; here- 



276 ESTHER AXD HER TIME*. 

after we shall see the results and recognize God's 
wisdom in Providence. 

3. If earthly dignity and honours in their best 
estate are vanity, let the humility and faith, the 
zeal and holiness of Esther and Mordecai teach us 
the true path of glory and honour and immortality. 
Here is a way of discharging the pressing duties of 
life, and securing in them the favour of God and the 
unfading honours of a kingdom that cannot be 
moved. As sinful men, the first requisite to citizen- 
ship in the heavenly kingdom, is to be reconciled to 
God ; to be submissive to his Spirit's guidance ; and 
dependent on the atoning merits of his Son. Let 
each soul ponder the wickedness and the danger of 
rebellion against God. Let the wicked forsake a 
way that must end in destruction ; and the unrighteous 
man the thoughts that must end in shame. With 
humble, but with sincere and believing hearts let us 
draw near to that God, who invites our confidence 
and encourages our hopes. If any one, in any 
situation of life, and for any reason supposes that lie 
can presume upon safety, though he timidly shrinks 
back from the plain path of duty, he has failed 
to learn a most important lesson which the book of 
Esther should have taught us. The duty of each 
moment and of each station, done at the proper 
time and by the proper person, with a wise union 
of earnest labour and of entire dependence upon 

God, is an important truth again and again urged 
upon us in these brief chapters. 



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